“The scope of the museum,” observes Sir William, “should be strictly defined and limited; there must be nothing like the general miscellaneous collection of ‘curiosities,’ thrown indiscriminately together, which constituted the old-fashioned country museum. I think we are all agreed as to the local character predominating. One section should contain antiquities and illustrations of local manners and customs; another section, local natural history, zoology, botany, and geology. The boundaries of the county will afford a good limit for both. Everything not occurring in a state of nature within that boundary should be rigorously excluded. In addition to this, it may be desirable to have a small general collection designed and arranged specially for elementary instruction in science.” These words of warning deserve, in the present writer’s opinion, more attention than they have yet received at the hands of those responsible for the administration of not a few local museums. It may be added that Flower was of opinion that ordinary local museums should not undertake original research work, which should be reserved for the larger establishments in our chief cities and the metropolis. With the means at their disposal—often insufficient even for the proper functions—local museums should have quite enough to do in illustrating local products. Not that Sir William Flower was of opinion that, in our larger cities, museums of a totally different nature from the local museum on the one hand and from the general museum on the other, may not have a justifiable _locus standi_. This is amply demonstrated by his remarks (republished in _Essays on Museums_) on the occasion of the opening of the Booth Museum at Brighton, in November 1890, which contains one of the finest and best mounted collection of British birds in the kingdom. FOOTNOTES [1] The writer is indebted to the Secretary of the Middlesex Hospital for these particulars. [2] At the cost of a gap in the systematic series, a step has been subsequently made in this direction by the transference of the elephants and sea-cows to the Geological Department. [3] An American writer has recently attributed, quite unjustifiably, the names in question to Flower. [4] The present writer has the less compunction in making this assertion, seeing that he himself is responsible for naming no inconsiderable number of these so-called sub-species of mammals. [5] _Scottish Review_, April, 1900, p. 5.