III.—Invertebrate Palæontology in some Continental Museums

Extract

Naturalists who refer to their “Baedeker” for information respecting the Continental Natural History Museums are too often disappointed by finding that if the author does happen to have mentioned them, either that he has confined his attention to the exterior of the building or has summarily dismissed the collection as “unimportant.” Hence geologists are dependent upon such, papers as those in which M. Cotteau has recapitulated the principal contents of several French and Swiss Museums, or that in which Mr. Smith Woodward has enumerated the most interesting specimens of many German and Austrian collections. The last paper, as is indicated by its title, “Vertebrate Paleontology in Continental Museums,” is restricted solely to the Vertebrata. But as the value of a Museum, as far as the Invertebrates are concerned, is dependent more on the possession of collections than of single famous specimens, the student of this group is more in need of such information than is the Vertebrate palæontologist; every one knows where he must go to see an Archæopteryx, a mounted Iguanodon, or a Neanderthal skull, but the last resting-place of a local collector's hoard is, as a rule, less known to fame. Hence the following notes may be of some service as a supplement to Mr. S. Woodward's paper.