I believe that this is a 19th century specimen cabinet. People forget that many people at the turn of the last century collected things such as bird eggs, insects, and other preserved living things. The two slide out shelves are for writing down information about what was stored in the drawers, and the two top drawers were used to maintain the files on the stored items. I think the construction of the cabinet speaks to the late 1800's if not the very early 1900's. I hope this helps!
