Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/493

Rh good-sized and condensed volume has been devoted to its collections of birds only and from Brazil alone; and when it is remembered that this collection possesses specimens of 1,200 species exclusively from that region, besides all the collections of the Novara Expedition, and that these are but a portion of the immense whole, some idea may be formed of its magnitude. The museum is also rich in its collections of nests and eggs. Many of these are uniques, and were procured by the Novara and other exploring expeditions. These will remain for the present unarranged, awaiting their transfer to new quarters in an immense building which the Government is now constructing, and which in size and position promises to be one capable of doing ample jusicejustice [sic] to this noble collection. In charge of the ornithology is Dr. A. von Pelzeln, a naturalist of high repute, and a most courteous and obliging gentleman. At the time of our visit, the fishes and reptiles were in charge of Curator Dr. Franz Steindachner, a pupil of Prof. Agassiz, and for a while his assistant in the Museum of Comparative Zoölogy at Cambridge. He has more recently been promoted to the post of director-in-chief, a position for which he is most admirably qualified.

The natural history museums of Southern Italy, from Naples to Florence, are almost exclusively devoted to human and comparative anatomy. In the lovely City of Flowers we find, in her Royal Museum of Physical and Natural Science, an institution under the royal patronage, and unique in its character. It is a university for teaching natural history and the physical sciences. Here in the home of Galileo, and where his memory is deservedly held in high honor, astronomy receives its full share of attention. Dr. Parlatore, an excellent botanist and an eloquent lecturer, instructs in botany; and the director of the museum is Dr. Henry H. Giglioli, well known to scientific men as the naturalist of the Magenta Exploring Expedition. This institution is fortunate in having at its head so accomplished a gentleman and so enthusiastic a naturalist, and under his judicious efforts to advance its interests it bids fair to become in all its departments well worthy of the Tuscan capital. Its anatomical collections are already deserving of the highest commendation.

In the little city of Pisa, so attractive to strangers for its architectural peculiarities, is a museum well worthy of attention. To the student of ornithology it is interesting as the home of Suvi, the pioneer ornithologist of Italy. Here is a local collection of birds made by him of exemplary merit. The specimens are arranged in family groups, in small, air-tight glass cases, in each of which is presented a single species in all its varied forms, as modified by age, sex, or season. This includes the nest and eggs, the young chick, the summer and the winter plumage, and all the variations of the sexes—at once a novel, instructive, and interesting feature.

In Genoa the Civic Museum, under the patronage and general