Dorset County Museum

Dorset County Museum began collecting natural history specimens in the 1840s, before Charles Darwin published his Origin of Species and some of our objects were actually used by him during his research.

Possibly the most important specimens are those contained within the Alfred Russel Wallace collection of bird skins as although this collection is of foreign origin, its use by Darwin makes it of great historical importance.

Other collections tell the natural history of Dorset’s diverse range of habitats, flora and fauna. These include the Mansel Pleydell herbarium collected between the 1860s and the 1890s, the Richardson entomological collection containing type material acquired in the 1930s, the Day collection of insects (acquired 1952), and aquatic specimens collected as part of the Dorset Underwater Survey.

This little game was used in an exhibition in 2003. We hope it will continue to amuse and to instruct.