Museums and their Type Specimens

Abstract

IN NATURE of January 9 (p. 62), reference is made to a paper published by Dr. R. Broom in the Annals of the Transvaal Museum (18, 397–413; 1936), in which he complains that four type-specimens in the British Museum have been maltreated while being investigated by Dr. Boonstra; one, a type described by Owen, and the others by himself. Speaking generally of type-specimens, ” in some cases,” he says, ” even the matrix ought not to be removed for sentimental reasons”. He would scarcely permit a type ” to be broken up in the interest of the morphologist.But any museum which allows type-specimens to be cut in slices or to have parts ground away always seems to me to be guilty of a gross breach of trust”. As for the British Museum, ” apparently any visitor can cut up types in any way he fancies”.