viewed as the means of assisting us in the acquisition of real knowledge, and not merely to be gazed at as raree shows, or as only valuable in proportion to the number or scarcity of the objects they contain."
Of course, periodical lectures were delivered by the Professor at Ipswich, and he was a most lucid and admirable exponent.
He was the first to maintain that in museums of animals, they should, whenever possible, as, e.g. with birds, be represented in their natural conditions. With this object he collected nests with the boughs, or whatever it was in which they rested. Since then this plan has been admirably carried out at the Natural History Museum, South Kensington. He also supplied several museums with wasps' and hornets' nests with their surroundings. The plan he discovered most convenient for taking them, was to saturate tow with spirits of turpentine and place it at night in the hole, covered over with an inverted and corked flower-pot. The nest could then be dug up with impunity, as all the wasps were dead or torpid by the following morning. He always preserved the "pavement" or bottom-soil covered with stones which accumulated as the hollow for the nest increased in size. The nest was then suspended over it on rods to show the exact position. It was also half-dissected, to exhibit the interior, all the grubs having been carefully extracted. The village carpenter, the late Mr W. Baker, was a most enthusiastic assistant in taking and mounting the specimens.
When the potato famine occurred in Ireland in 1845—46, the disease was very prevalent in Hitcham. This induced the Professor to explain to his parishioners and others—for he published his recommendations—how they could utilise their rotten potatoes by extracting the valuable starch, which still remained sound within the tubers, even when these were refused by pigs. The process is so simple that it may be mentioned here. The potatoes must be grated (a piece of tin with holes punched through it will do); the pulp is then stirred with a stream of cold water through a hair-sieve. The brown water must be allowed a few minutes for the starch, carried through, to settle. The water is poured off, and the layer of starch must
