hey
prove to be useless as specimens. These remarks apply also to the case
of hybernated females. Many female insects, though unwilling to lay in
confinement, may be watched at large, and the flowers and plants on
which they have from time to time rested, searched for their eggs.

In concluding this chapter, I feel that I might have said much more
upon nearly every section--have explained many new "dodges," and so
forth, were it not that the limit of space has been reached. One
thing, however, may be noted as an omission, and that is the
recommendation as to what books should be procured by the young
entomologist. This is so difficult a matter--depending entirely upon
the aim of the individual--that I prefer to leave it an open question,
merely making the general statement that nearly all our advanced
systems are founded upon the labours of German and French
entomologists. [Footnote: Mr. Wm. Wesley. Essex Street Strand, London,
publishes monthly a "Natural History Book Circular," which he will
send to naturalists if asked.]

CHAPTER XVI.

ON NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO A NEW SYSTEM OF
PICTORIAL ARRANGEMENT OF VERTEBRATES.

I MUST confess that, at one time, the consideration of the best method
of dealing to advantage with the limited space usually existing in the
older provincial museums would have dismayed me. Even at that time,
however, I had glimmerings of the brighter light which has since
illumined the way, and I was, perhaps, aided by the persistent manner
in which I haunted museums both abroad and at home, until at last I
never went on a journey without managing to break it, or to make it
end at the then summum bonum of my happiness--a museum. Like
Diogenes, I went about with my lamp to find, not an honest man, but an
honest museum--a museum with some originality, and with some definite
idea as to its sphere of work. Leaving out, of course, such complete
and technical institutions as the Museum of Geology, the Museum of the
College of Surgeons, and such institutions which really have a motive
in view--steadfastly adhered to--I saw, then as now, that every
provincial museum was nothing if left to its own devices, and, if
"inspired," was, at the best, but a sorry and servile imitator of the
worst points of our national museum.

Everyone must have observed, no doubt, in any provincial museum which
dates back thirty or forty years, that the great curse of the
collection, so to speak, is