Each professor superintends and arranges the part of the collections corresponding to the science which he is charged to teach. For this purpose, there are also assistant naturalists, whose employment is to prepare the various articles of natural history. The keeper of the cabinet, under the authority of the director, takes all the measures necessary for the preservation of the collections. The principal ones are:

  1. The cabinet of natural history, containing the animal kingdom, divided into its classes; the mineral kingdom; the fossils, woods, fruits, and other vegetable productions, together with the herbals. This cabinet, which occupies the buildings on the right, on entering from the street, is open to students on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays, from eleven o'clock till two, and to the public in general every Tuesday and Friday in the afternoon.
  2. The library, chiefly composed of works relating to natural history, contains, among other valuable articles, an immense collection of animals and plants, painted on vellum. Three painters are charged to continue this collection under the superintendance of the professors. The library is open to the public every day from eleven o'clock to two.
  3. The cabinet of anatomy, containing the preparations relative to the human race and to animals. It is situated in a separate building, and for the present open to students only.
  4. The botanical school, containing the plants growing in the open ground, and the numerous hot-houses in which are cultivated those peculiar to warm countries.
  5. The ménagerie of foreign animals. At the present moment, they are dispersed in various parts of the garden; but they are shortly to be assembled in a spacious and agreeable place.
  6. The chemical laboratory and the collection of chemical productions.

To these may be added a laboratory for the preparation of objects of natural history, and another for that of objects of anatomy.

Notwithstanding the improved state to which BUFFON had brought this establishment, yet, through the united care of the several scientific men who have since had the direction of it, the constant attention bestowed on it by the government, and even by the conquests of the French armies, its riches have been so much increased, that its collection of natural history may at this day be considered as the finest in being. The department of the minerals and that of the quadrupeds are nearly complete; that of the birds is one of the most considerable and the handsomest known; and the other classes, without answering yet the idea which a naturalist might conceive of thenm, are, nevertheless, superior to what other countries have to offer.

Among the curious or scarce articles in this Museum, the following claim particular notice:

In the class of quadrupeds, adult individuals, stuffed, such as the camelopard, the hippopotamus, the single-horned rhinoceros, the Madagascar squirrel, the Senegal lemur, two varieties of the oran-outang, the proboscis-monkey, different specimens of the indri, some new species of bats and opossums, the Batavian kangaroo, and several antelopes, ant-eaters, &c.

In the class of birds, a great number of new or rare species, and among those remarkable either for size or beauty, are the golden vulture, the great American eagle, the Impey peacock, the Ju[*blot*] pheasant or argus, the plantain-eater, &c.

Among the reptiles, the crocodile of the Ganges, the fimbriated tortoise of Cayenne, &c.

Among the shells, the glass patella, and a number of valuable, scarce, or new species.

The collection of insects has just been completed through the assiduity of the estimable LAMARCK, the professor who has charge of that department.