Abstract
TO those familiar with the natural history collections in the old British Museum in Bloomsbury the work of Dr. Günther must revive many pleasant associations of the 'fifties and 'sixties of last century—when the insect room was frequented by naturalists of note in various departments. Thus, besides the staff of the museum, which then included the brothers J. E. and R. Gray, Dr. Günther himself, F. Smith, and foreign naturalists, one met such men as Dr. Bowerbank, Mr. Busk, Dr. Carpenter, Mr. John Gould, and such ladies as the charming Mrs. Alfred Gatty—all eager to absorb as well as impart information. No marine laboratories then existed, so that marine, as well as terrestrial, natural history centred in the great museum. In the historical treatise heading the list, which no one could write so well as Dr. Günther, we are brought face to face with all the conspicuous additions to the vast collections, which in 1868 were close on a million and in 1895 two millions, the changes in the staff, the nature of their work, the financial allowances, and, more than all, the remarkable task of transporting the collections from the old museum to the new quarters in Cromwell Road.
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M., W. The Natural History Collections of the British Museum 1 . Nature 90, 595–597 (1913). https://doi.org/10.1038/090595b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/090595b0