Museum of Comparative Zoology

“ He returned to the question in reference to the arrangement of the new National Museum, and, although no longer advocating so complete an incorporation of the two series, apparently in consideration of the interests of the division into ‘departments’ which he found in existence there, he says: ‘The department of zoology in such a museum should be so located as to afford the easiest transit from the specimens of existing to those of extinct animals. ”

“ None better deserves the gratitude of scholars, as well as of the general mass of visitors.
State of the Natural History Collections of the Museum in 1836. Dr. Gray became Keeper of Zoology in 1840. Four years earlier, he had given to Sir Benjamin Hawes’ Committee a striking account of the condition of that department, illustrating it by comparisons with the corresponding Collections in Paris, which may thus (not without unavoidable injustice) be abridged:—The species of mammalia then in the Museum were four hundred and five ”

“ Gigantic as this labour would be, it would be trifling compared with the labour of classifying all the animals now living (not to mention extinct species) , so that the place of any one might be securely and rapidly determined; yet the persistent zeal and sagacity of zoologists have done for the animal kingdom what has not yet been done for the library of the Museum, although the titles of the books are not absent. It has been done by patient reading of the contents—by anatomical investigation of the internal structure of animals. ”

“ The number of species of Mammals possessed by the British Museum was a little over two thousand, exemplified by about three thousand individual specimens. In the year 1830, the number of specimens had been about one thousand three hundred and fifty; in 1850, it had risen to nearly two thousand. It follows that, within thirty-two years, the number of specimens in the Museum Collection had been somewhat more than doubled. ”

“ A third museum is found to be full of stuffed birds, eggs, and nests; some of the birds stuffed in their natural surroundings are very beautifully done. The zoological library adjoins. A fourth museum, built in 1894, contains a large collection of stuffed animals and a collection of shells. Here is a huge skeleton of an African elephant, with good tusks, and a stuffed giraffe; a whole unmounted hippopotamus skin, and a stuffed quagga, now extinct.
Close by this museum are some pens containing zebras and wild asses. The new bear house, built in 1897, contains a fine collection. ”

“ In connection with this is established a zoölogical museum of the district, in which the biological side is kept prominent, and which is nearly complete in invertebrates. The section publishes scientific lists of the native fauna, and is preparing for a wider circulation a "Westphalian Animal Life in Word and Picture," which is to be published in elegant style, and of which the first volume, the "Mammalia," is ready. ”

“ In these heydays of popular zoology, when eager young naturalists are coming to the front in crowds, and fine new scientific museums are starting up on every hand, there is small need to apologize for the appearance of a work designed expressly for the naturalist and museum-builder. ”

“ In many important museums it has been found useful to illustrate animal structure and comparative anatomy by means of key or type collections, which are kept apart from the genera classification, yet serve to illustrate important points in comparative zoology, which it would be difficult to do on a very extensive scale. ”

“ Naturalists who deal specially with museum collections have been compelled, it is true, for other reasons to attach an increasing importance to what is called the type specimen, but they find that this insistence on the individual, although invaluable from the point of view of recording species, is unsatisfactory from the point of view of scientific zoology ”

“ The collection of animals for the scientific worker was developed, and students of the rich material contained In the national collection were encouraged. Flower very properly felt, however, that the duty of a curator of a great national institution was also to teach the non-scientific public; he accordingly formed a large collection, which was displayed in the central hall of the museum with a view to illustrating the main facts of zoology and botany. This admirable selection of specimens remains to attest his unusual competence as a museum director. ”

“ It is of importance to zoologists to be reminded or informed in what institution or private museum the collections made by travelling and home naturalists are deposited; it is of even greater importance to tabulate the principal additions made to zoological science by such collections. ”

“ On the northern side is a collection of mammals, representing about 200 species of the various quadrupeds. The cases on the galleries are occupied by the extraordinary collection of birds, which is three times more extensive than that of the British Museum ”

“ We put them in the most life-like attitudes we can, with bits of grass and bush, and painted landscape behind them: by doing this we give people who have never seen the actual animals, a more vivid idea concerning them than we know how to give by any other means. We have not room in the British Museum to give a loose rein to realism in the matter of accessories, but each bird or animal in the collection is so stuffed as to make it look as much alive as the stuffer can make it—even to the insertion of glass eyes. ”

“ The work in systematic zoology is now mainly carried on by specialists in relatively small groups of animals. This is necessitated both by the increasingly large number of species known to science and by the completeness and exactness with which species must now be defined. The majority of systematic workers are now connected with museums where the large collections furnish material for comparative studies. ”

“ The Ornithological Museum, though not of itself very extensive, is particularly interesting to scientific students as the depository of collections made by the several national exploring expeditious of France. Among these are many unique and typical specimens, not known to exist elsewhere in museums. The collection of eggs is also wonderfully interesting, is very large and well preserved, and contains not only many very rare kinds, but is especially noteworthy as possessing a large number of species not to be found in any other public collection, some of them laid by birds in confinement. ”

“ Almost all the branches of biology, except taxonomy, are taught outside of museums. Morphology and physiology are followed mainly at universities and marine laboratories, the experimental study of evolution including inheritance at these and at special experimental stations—governmental and private, and the newer sides of biology, biochemistry, biophysics and comparative psychology are practically unrepresented at the museums. For experimental research as distinguished from taxonomic, in fact for the study of vital details of any kind, one goes to a laboratory rather than to a museum. ”

“ The Museum and Hall of the Natural History Society, in Peter-street, can only be entered on presenting an order from a subscriber. The Museum is very rich in almost every description of natural history; we believe in ornithology it is particularly so; its collection of British birds is said to be unequalled, and its entomological department is becoming exceedingly extensive. ”

“ After the meeting we went upstairs to the library, had tea and chatted with some of the big people.... Zoology is certainly delightful, yet it seems to me the Zoologists are much as other people. I like Zoology. I wish I could do without Zoologists....
October 30.
Home once more. The Natural History Museum impressed me enormously. It is a magnificent building—too magnificent to work there—to follow one's profession in a building like that seems an altogether too grandiose [Pg 55] manner of life. A pious zoologist might go up to pray in it—but not to earn his daily bread there. ”

“ The Birds, by their feather-clad bodies, and by the transformation of their two fore-limbs into wings, form the best-characterised class in the whole animal kingdom. But naturalists can no more agree as to the number of their species than as to the number of species composing the Mammalia. Some, taking as a foundation the rich ornithological collection in the Berlin Museum, allow for 6000 species being distributed over the surface of the globe; others, like Lessen, increase the total to 6266 ”

“ Twenty-five years hence the zoological museums of this country will be as attractive and pleasing as the picture galleries, and they will teach ten times as many object-lessons as they do now. To-day the average museum is as lifeless as a dictionary; but the museum of the future will be life itself.
In Plate XVI. are shown three other examples of wall-cases, of different kinds. Fig. 10 is a group of humming-birds, with choice accessories, under a hemispherical glass shade, surrounded by a black velvet mat, and set in a rich gold frame. ”

“ We unhesitatingly say that this official obscurantism is no longer possible, and that it is owing to chiefs like Sir William Flower that it is dying now and will be incapable of resuscitation in the future. A zoological museum is capable of a vast aesthetic leavening of the masses; a love of nature is universal and precedes art. ”

“ There are five galleries devoted to natural history, and are named thus: the Botanical Museum, Mammalia Gallery, Eastern Zoölogical Gallery, Northern Zoölogical Gallery, and the Mineral Gallery. The specimens in all these are very fine. Nothing can be finer than the mammalia. The preservation has been perfect, and far surpasses what I have been accustomed to see in museums, where decay seems to be often rioting upon the remains of nature. ”

“ Again, and in the same volume, we read:—"The zoological collections in the British Museum may be briefly dismissed. The whole collection of insects is contained in four small cases; nor are these completely filled. The birds and mammiferous quadrupeds are arranged according to the order of Linnaeus, but want of room prevents their being placed in situations sufficiently accessible for inspection. The species of quadrupeds are not numerous, owing, I believe, to the decay which too speedily takes place in stuffed specimens, particularly in the atmosphere of London. ”

“ By some accident zoölogy Is the term which has become connected with the special work of arranging specimens and naming species which is carried on in great museums, and which has gone on in museums since the days when 'objects of natural history,' and other curiosities, first attracted serious attention in the sixteenth century. Accordingly, zoology, in this limited sense, has taken the direction indicated by the requirements of the curators of museums, and is supposed to consist in the study of animals not as they are in toto. ”

“ Waterhouse estimates that the British Museum alone contains not fewer than 12,000 species of insects which have not yet been described, while our collections do not probably contain anything like one half of those actually in existence. Further than this, the anatomy and habits even of those which have been described offer an inexhaustible field for research, and it is not going too far to say that there is not a single species which would not amply repay the devotion of a lifetime. ”

“ Large collections are stored in laboratories and inclosed spaces in the exhibition halls which would be placed on exhibition if space were available. As has already been explained, in a new building there should be available for the Department of Biology 190,000 square feet of exhibition, laboratory, and storage space.
The present exhibit is more complete than that of the other departments of the museum. Of birds there is a large mounted series, one of the finest in existence, but it is so indifferently housed that it fails to make the impression it should. ”

“ UP-TO-DATE SPECIES MAKING
The ornithological world is peopled by two classes of human beings. There are those who study nature inside the museum with the microscope and the scalpel; and there are those who love to observe birds in the open and study their habits. The former, if kept in their place, perform a very useful function, for they co-ordinate and elaborate the observations of the field naturalist. They should be most useful servants to him. Unfortunately these museum men are growing very powerful, and, like trade unions, are beginning to dictate to their masters. ”

“ According to the 'Globe,' a subterranean laboratory has been opened at the Museum of Natural History, which is situated in the Jardin des Plantes, Paris. It has been created in order to study the influence of darkness on animals, and discover by experiment how animal species are thus modified. ”

“ It appears, from evidence, that many of the middle classes are in the habit of forming collections in various branches of Natural History, and that many, even the working classes, employ their holidays in the study of botany or geology, or in the collection of insects obtained in the neighbourhood of London; that they refer to the British Museum, in order to ascertain the proper classification of the specimens thus obtained, and that want of leisure alone restrains the further increase of this class of visitors. ”

“ It is to characterize yourself, or get some friend to do so for you, all your new species. The specimens, you tell me, are now in England, & the task will be comparatively easy. I urge this, because you may not be aware that a new species, deposited in a museum, is of no authority whatsoever, until its name and its character are published. I have repeatedly set my face against such authorities, so has Mr. Vigors, so has Ch. Bonaparte, and on this head we are all perfectly unanimous. ”

“ The specimens of mammals obtained by the Andrew J. Stone Expedition in North British Columbia form the largest single collection that has ever been brought down from the north. In the Bahamas and Virginia material was collected for special bird groups for the museum. The vertebrate paleontological collections of the museum were enriched by expeditions maintained in the field, and the establishment of a fund by a member of the board of trustees for providing material to illustrate the origin and development of the horse produced immediate results of the highest importance. ”