One other way only is there out of the difficulty, which is to show a specimen of the same insect in all three divisions; but this would, though more correct, be as embarrassing to understand, to say nothing of the loss of space involved, because the same thing would have to be repeated with nearly every invertebrate possessed by a museum arranged on these lines.
The proper way, I contend, to give real information is to shake off all insular prejudice and not call things by their wrong names, i.e., claim as "British," things which are not essentially so. To this end I have labelled the butterfly in question:
VANESSA. ANTIOPA, L.
(Camberwell Beauty.)
Range: Asia, Africa, America,
Europe generally, including Britain (rarely),
and has occurred in Leicestershire three times.
This, I am quite sure, is the proper method to educate the public, who cannot understand, or are misled by, such crudities as placing specimens in arbitrary divisions such as "Local," "British," and "Foreign."
The same rule applies to the plants; and I remember a case occurring, but a short time since when a young botanist, wishing to name a few plants collected abroad (in Europe), came to our herbarium, modelled on these misleading lines, and at once turned to the "Foreign" division to find specimens by which to compare his own. An hour was wasted in trying to puzzle some of them out, and he then came to me saying, "You hav'n't got them."
At once I saw he had things of world-wide distribution, and turning, much to his amazement, to the "Local" division, found them for him. All this comparison, and waste of time and temper, might have been saved had the plants been arranged in their proper orders and families, irrespective of imaginary divisions, with a label attached stating their range and if occurring locally.
Leaving biology now, we shall see how this "elastic system" can "be carried through the collections from end to end." Take the rocks as an example. Is it real science — or what is it — which would label syenite a "Leicestershire" rock? Such queries and replies could be multiplied ad infinitum, for it will be observed that I have said nothing about the mammals, where the loss of space and want of cohesion in such a group as the carnivora — best represented of all in "local"--are patent. The fishes — fancy a "local" salmon! yet they occasionally run up the rivers.
But I need not enlarge on this, further than to say that under this "elastic" system it was gravely proposed to pictorially mount the "local" freshwater fishes under the sea fishes, not because it was a direct violation of the physics of salt and fresh water, but because the "local" division must come in its place at the bottom of the range of cases! I had almost forgotten to say that these precious divisions were to be made self-evident to the bucolic intellect even, by means of colour — thus, "Local" was to be brownish-red rock; "British," green; and "Foreign," blue; and these colours were, without reference to any artistic considerations such as the laws of contrast in colour, or light and shade, to be rigidly adhered to, and to be carried in distinct, if "wavy" bands, all around the room.