ted, or shown in spirits, but first-class coloured
drawings of such creatures as Medusae, etc, are provided. This is, I am
sure, a step in the right direction, and I so recognise the importance
of this, that I am preparing charts of parts, etc, of animals as keys
to their structure, and also enlarging minute forms under the
microscope, to be placed in position in the invertebrate cases for the
Leicester Museum.

Another very fine feature of the Liverpool Museum, and worthy of
imitation, is the manner in which the osteological preparations are
managed. Not only are complete skeletons of mammals shown, but parts
for comparison--that is to say, there is a large series of skulls of
various mammals, birds, reptiles, and fishes, and, again, leg and arm
bones, and their parts, arranged side by side; hence you may compare
the fore-limb of the human subject with that of a monkey, a lion, a
whale, a marsupial, a bird, a reptile, or a fish. [Footnote: Of
course, all this may be seen in the Museum of the College of Surgeons,
or at Oxford or Cambridge, etc, but these are special institutions, and
I am merely taking provincial general museums as my standpoint.]

It is needless to say--taking into consideration the fact that these
are prepared under the direction of the curator, Mr. Moore, and his
accomplished family--that all are beautifully arranged and classified.
In short, Liverpool is to be congratulated on its collections of bones
and invertebrates. Turning, however, to the vertebrates, we see that,
although the management begins to recognise the importance of
"pictorial" mounting, it is done in a half-hearted manner--isolated
groups here and there, on square boards, placed in the general
collection amongst the birds, on pegs, serving only to render the
latter more conspicuous in their shortcomings. This system of
Liverpool is being copied at Nottingham, Derby, and other places, and
was being copied also at Leicester, but not being, to my mind, half
thorough enough, has been discarded for the more ambitious--certainly
more effective--and quite as scientific method of arranging the
vertebrates pictorially, and in their proper sequence in orders and
families, endeavour being made to represent specimens of each genus
also, where practicable, in this manner.

As will be seen, in making a brief resume of what has gone before, I
am in favour of large, top-lighted rooms, painted in a light neutral
tint, well warmed; cases built in o