of effectual zoological demonstrations. The dissection of animals is
not altogether pleasant, and requires much time; nor is it easy to
secure an adequate supply of the needful specimens. The botanist has
here a great advantage; his specimens are easily obtained, are clean
and wholesome, and can be dissected in a private house as well as
anywhere else; and hence, I believe, the fact, that botany is so much
more readily and better taught than its sister science. But, be it
difficult or be it easy, if zoological science is to be properly
studied, demonstration, and, consequently, dissection, must be had.
Without it, no man can have a really sound knowledge of animal
organization.

A good deal may be done, however, without actual dissection on the
student's part, by demonstration upon specimens and preparations; and
in all probability it would not be very difficult, were the demand
sufficient, to organize collections of such objects, sufficient for all
the purposes of elementary teaching, at a comparatively cheap rate.
Even without these, much might be effected, if the zoological
collections, which are open to the public, were arranged according to
what has been termed the "typical principle"; that is to say, if the
specimens exposed to public view were so selected that the public could
learn something from them, instead of being, as at present, merely
confused by their multiplicity. For example, the grand ornithological
gallery at the British Museum contains between two and three thousand
species of birds, and sometimes five or six specimens of a species.
They are very pretty to look at, and some of the cases are, indeed,
splendid; but I will undertake to say, that no man but a professed
ornithologist has ever gathered much information from the collection.
Certainly, no one of the tens of thousands of the general public who
have walked through that gallery ever knew more about the essential