Practical Taxidermy Part 38

From Barston, Warwickshire. Presented by the Curator (M.B.), 1882.

The animals collected in the district are now being placed in the middle of the room in oak cases, with plate-gla.s.s all around, on the tops of table-cases holding at present the invertebrates, and will show the male and female, young in nest, the eggs, birds in change of plumage, all surrounded as in nature by carefully-modelled plants and other accessories, the food, and the skeleton. The labelling of these latter groups requiring a ma.s.s of information, as being of local interest, is in this wise (on light sage-green coloured cards):

TOWN MUSEUM, LEICESTER.

Studies ill.u.s.trating the Habits, etc, of Animals collected in the County.

CLa.s.s--Aves ORDER--Pa.s.seres FAMILY--t.u.r.didae

GROUP No. .--Ill.u.s.trative of the Life-History of the Whitethroat (SYLVIA CINEREA, Bechst), a Bird of Pa.s.sage, or Spring Migrant to Britain (winters in Africa).

No. C1A--Male Whitethroat

No C1B--Female Whitethroat

No C1--Nest Of Whitethroat

Nos. C1.50 to C1.53--Four Young Of Whitethroat

The whole collected by the Curator at Aylestone, August, 1883.

The Male and Female are the actual builders of the nest, and parents of the young birds here shown.

No. A Male, and No. Female, in Spring plumage. To be procured

RANGE.--N. Africa, Western Asia, Europe generally, common in Britain (except in the North), and also in Leicestershire.

FOOD.--Caterpillars, various small insects, and occasionally small fruits.

EGGS.--Four or five. Builds its nest amongst nettles or brambles, in low bushes near to the ground. (N.B.--Eggs shown at back of group.) Duplicate Skin and Skeleton.

PLANT EXHIBITED.

BRAMBLE (Rubus fruticosus, 1.). VAR.: discolor

RANGE.--Whole of Europe except extreme North, Russian and Central Asia and Northern Africa (Not high Alpine). Common in Leicestershire.

Flowers and leaves modelled from Nature by the curator

Now for the invertebrates. Not having a special room at present for these, they are best displayed in the centre of the vertebrate-room, if possible, in table-cases, which are--for convenience, though, incorrectly in science--arranged in linear order, beginning at the Protozoa and running on to the Cephalopoda. As I before pointed out, a tabular arrangement is inevitable except in some rare cases, where a group might be taken to be pictorially displayed to give an idea of the creature's mode of life.

By far the best arrangement of invertebrates I have ever seen is that adopted at the Liverpool Museum under the auspices of the Rev. H. H.

Higgins, M.A, whose views on the invertebrates are very clearly defined in his Introduction to a "Synopsis of an Arrangement of Invertebrate Animals" contained in the Liverpool Museum. He says therein:

"The series had to be conformed to a linear arrangement. In some respects this was a serious disadvantage. The cla.s.ses of invertebrate animals cannot well be represented in a single ascending or descending series. Probably it would not be possible on any symmetrical plan to a.s.sign to them their proper positions relatively to each other; but some palpable incongruities might be avoided by the use of table-cases on a ground plan resembling a genealogical tree, one proposed form of which is represented by a diagram in a work published by Professor Rolleston.

"The importance of a suitable ground plan for cases in museums seems to be much underrated. When a cla.s.s of students visit a museum frequently, the localities of cases containing special groups become indelibly impressed upon the memory. This might be turned to good account.

"In preparing the first scheme of the collection, it seemed essential that plain and moderately-simple printed descriptions of the life-history of the animals should accompany the specimens; therefore, as it was clearly impossible to describe every genus, it became necessary to fix on some mode of a.s.sociating in groups a number of examples to which the descriptions might apply. Such divisions as 'cla.s.ses' and 'orders' were manifestly too large, whilst 'families'

varied from a single genus, including a solitary species, to an army of more than a thousand genera--e.g, the Linnaean families Cerambycidae and Curculionidae in the Coleoptera. It was with some regret that the idea of attaching a readable sketch to each division of a given rank in recent systems of cla.s.sification was relinquished; but it was found to be impracticable, and the life-history sketch thus became the foundation of the arrangement eventually adopted.

"Whether it might be a few species, or a genus, or a family, or an order, that seemed to afford suitable scope for a page of readable and instructive matter, it was decided that, throughout the entire collection, such a group should be segregated, so as to form the unit of the series. Eventually, in order that the sketches, which it was proposed to print for that purpose on tablets, might all be in positions where they could conveniently be read, it was found to be expedient that each group or unit should occupy an equal s.p.a.ce; and as the blocks on which the table-cases rested were to be fitted up with trays or drawers, twelve of which would occupy the table-case without loss of room, these trays or drawers were adopted as the receptacles and boundaries of the groups.

"The entire plan of the table-cases, and the limits of many of the groups, were committed to writing before any considerable advance had been made in procuring specimens. In one respect this circ.u.mstance was found to be very advantageous--our desiderata were at once well defined. It was an object that each of the groups should be ill.u.s.trated by carefully-selected specimens, and, until this could be attained, other acquisitions need not be sought for. In making purchases, such an object, steadily kept in view, exercises a powerful influence against the seductive attractions of 'great bargains,' which often turn out to be great misfortunes to a museum. Moreover, in accepting donations, it is sometimes convenient to be able to refer to a fixed plan. Where room is scanty, as in most museums, nothing is more subversive of order, or more fatal to an instructive arrangement, than the gift of a collection, coupled with a stipulation that it must be displayed in some special way. [Footnote: We possess in the Leicester Museum a very fine collection of the whole of the "British"

Birds (totally devoid, however of a history of the specimens) called the "Bickley Collection"--bequeathed to the town under these conditions--which, could we have used it to embellish our present arrangement, would have saved money, and, what is still more important, the entire wall s.p.a.ce of a small room now devoted to them.]

It is far better to forego the possession even of a valuable series of specimens than to sacrifice order for their sake ... .

The following is the plan of arrangement adopted in connection with each group: Wherever circ.u.mstances permit, the plan for each group includes (1) A printed schedule, (2) Exotic species, (3) British representatives, (4) The printed tablet, (5) Earliest fossils, (6) Diagrams and other ill.u.s.trations, (7) Species and varieties on a more extended scale."

The schedule, of which an example follows, is printed in large type, and is attached conspicuously to the drawer:

GROUP 222.

SUB-KINGDOM

PROVINCE

CLa.s.s

SUB-CLa.s.s

ORDER

SUB-ORDER

FAMILY

Annulosa

Arthropoda

Insecta

Metabola

Lepidoptera

Rhopalocera

Papilionidae

Skeleton external, ringed.

Limbs jointed.

Legs, six.

Transformations complete.