RECENT ADDITIONS TO THE AUCKLAND MUSEUM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9160, 15 September 1888, Page 3

RECENT ADDITIONS TO THE AUCKLAND MUSEUM.

The Auckland Museum has juat received two large consignments of specimens, which, when prepared for exhibition, will add very materially to its appearance. The first is a series of skins of animals from Borneo, specially collected for the Museum by Mr. C. F. Adams, who was formerly employed by the institution as taxidermist. Among other things, it includes an unusually large and fine skin of an adulb male orang-utan, aho specimens of the gibbon, proboscis monkey, Lotong monkey, besides animals of other classes. The Museum has very few large stuffed animals, and none of the higher apes, go that this acquisition will be of special value as helping to fill up a conspicuous gap. The second addition consists of three cases of natural history specimens forwarded by the Imperial Museum of Florence, containing 20 skins of mammals, 100 birds, 60 lizards, snakes, reptiles, etc., and a collection of 65 deep-sea fishes, mostly obtained by the recent dredging expsditions in the Mediterranean. Many of those specimens are of considerable value, and will fill up previously existing blanks. The consignment is sent in exchange for a series of specimens illustrative of the New Zealand fauna and ilora collected by Mr. Cheeseman, and forwarded to Florence rather more than a year ago. It is gratifying to know that these specimens have attracted some attention at Florence, and are considered to form an important addition to the Imperial Museum, so much so that the authorities of the Florence Academy of Sciences have forwarded to Mr. Cheesernan, as an acknowledgment for the trouble he has taken in forming the collection, the " Galilean" silver medal annually presented by it to some important benefactor to Florentine institutions, or to a conspicuous man of science. This medal has on one side a likeness of Galileo, the famous astronomer, of whose memory the Florentines are naturally proud, and on the other has the name of the person to whom it is presented. The necessity for the enlargement of the Museum is now becoming very apparent. It is doubtful whether room can be found for the exhibition of any part of the collections mentioned above ; in fact, for some time past material has been accumulating that cannot be shown to the public. The ethnological specimens from the Admiralty Islands, purchased from Mr. Stuart, and which attracted so much notice when exhibited afe a recent meeting of the Institute, have had to be packed away for the present, as also an important set of similar specimens from Alaska, forwarded a year or two ago in exchange from the United States National Museum. From want of room, the fine collection of Maori mats, bequeathed by Mr. C. O. Davis, is very inadequately shown. We understand that, although the members' subscriptions and the Costley bequest yield an annual income sufficient to carry on the Museum creditably, the amount is not large enough to provide for botli the maintenance of the Museum and the erection of a new buildding, and that the Council of the Institute is thus compelled to await the time when the landed endowment of the Museum may enlarge its means sufficiently.