h a system,
which is really a lucus a non lucendo.

By this scheme, we have "local" birds at bottom (very well arranged),
"British" next (not so well arranged), and "foreign" at top (not well
arranged at all), and these arbitrary and totally unnatural divisions
were supposed to "drive home the truths of natural history into the
minds of casual visitors," to be "applicable to all the departments of
a museum, so that, if it were adopted, a uniform plan might be carried
through the collections from end to end, giving a systematic
completeness which is rarely found in museums at the present time. It
utilises the breaks and blank spaces in every series."

Never was there a more impracticable theory broached. The whole
arrangement was based on an utter disregard of the requirements of
science, leaving out art altogether, and, worse still, upon an utter
ignorance of first principles of zoology. May I ask if anyone can
define a "local" bird from a "British" bird, or a "British" bird from
a "foreign" bird? Lastly, every one should know that every bird found
in Leicestershire is a "British" bird, and that every "British" bird is
a "foreign" one; and that each of these imaginary divisions is being
constantly recruited from the division immediately above it.
[Footnote: There are but two birds belonging to the Paridae (Titmice),
which are claimed as being peculiar to Britain; and these merely on
the ground of being climatic varieties--hardly sufficient to warrant
the founding of new "species."]

For instance, the golden eagle is not a "local" bird, but it may be
so to-morrow, should one stray from North Britain, as they sometimes
do, and be shot by some person within the boundary of the county. It
then becomes "local"! This bird, which is as distinctly
"foreign"--being found in Europe, North Africa, America, etc.--as it is
"British"! Put this in, or leave it out of the "local" division, and
what does it teach?

Arguing per contra, the osprey has been killed in our own county more
than once; it is thus "local;" it is also "British," nesting in North
Britain; it is also distinctly "foreign," being found positively in
every quarter of the globe--in Australia even--sharing with the common
barn owl the distinction of being actually cosmopolitan.

In which division are we to place this? It is "local," and yet cannot
be mounted in that division, with its nest and young, because it has
never bred in the Midlands; but it has bred in No