Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/491

Rh be found. The wealth of these collections is in painful contrast with the poverty of their surroundings.

Though a little out of the order of our visit, we will now turn to Geneva, where, in the Natural History Museum, we find everything in agreeable contrast with the shortcomings of the National Museum at Berne. The spacious and elegant building is comparatively new, is well arranged for light and the exhibition of specimens, and is pleasantly situated in the midst of a large, open park. Here may be studied the famous conchological collections that once belonged to the Duke of Massena, and which, to the student of this department of science, afford added interest as having been the types for Lamarck's great work. Here, too, is an immensely rich and very interesting collection of fossils, systematically arranged by the distinguished Pictet, and, among them, all the geological types of De Saussure. There is also an immense collection of coleopterous insects. The ornithological collection of this museum is not large, but exceptionally good. The specimens are all excellent, are well mounted, and present several commendable features, rare in Continental collections. The exact locality where each specimen was obtained is carefully recorded, and the local group of the birds of Switzerland forms an interesting and instructive feature. Another not common feature is an excellent, systematically-arranged collection of the eggs of birds. Though, comparatively speaking, not a large one, it is quite respectable even in point of numbers; and, in the care given to its preservation and in its arrangement, it is a model, and almost unique. This department is under the charge of M. Alois Humbert, an excellent ornithologist, whose explorations in Asia have contributed many specimens of great rarity, one of the most interesting being a veritable nest of one of the tailor-birds, so long the subject of unverified description.

In Stuttgart, the capital of Würtemberg, is a very large and valuable Museum of Natural History, that fills twenty spacious rooms in the Building of the Archives. To geologists, and to students of zoölogy and comparative anatomy, its collections in these departments are replete with interest. The collection of birds is very rich in rare African types, but, in the absence of Prof. Krauss, the director, these could not be inspected to advantage. The museum has no collection of eggs, but there is in the little kingdom of Würtemberg probably the largest oölogical collection in the world; the richest in its number of species, and excelling in the rarity and beauty of specimens, and in the extent and fullness of series, exhibiting variations in eggs of the same species. It belongs to Baron von Warthausen, and is preserved in his castle near Biberach. Unfortunately, I cannot speak of it from my own observation, as I had gone far beyond it before my invitation to visit and examine it overtook me in Dresden. It is, however, well known to be of great and constantly-increasing value, containing