British Museum (Natural History) General GuideBritish Museum (Natural History)
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British Museum (Natural History) General Guide
British Museum (Natural History)
British Museum (Natural History) -- Guidebooks; Natural history museums -- England -- London -- Guidebooks
Above the first landing the staircase divides into two flights, each
leading to one of the corridors which flank the west and east sides of
the hall and give access to the galleries of the first floor of the
building. Near the southern ends of these corridors two staircases join
to form a central flight leading to the second floor. On the landing at
the top is a marble statue by Chantrey of SIR JOSEPH BANKS (b. 1743, d.
1820), who for 41 years presided over the Royal Society and was Trustee
of the Museum. His botanical collections are preserved in the adjoining
gallery, but his library of works on natural history, also bequeathed
to the Museum, remains at Bloomsbury, where the statue, erected by
public subscription in 1826, stood until it was removed to its present
situation in 1886. On the wall above is displayed a series of unusually
fine heads of Indian Big Game Animals, bequeathed by Mr. A. O. Hume,
C.B., in 1912.
[Illustration: FIG. 14.--A FEMALE OKAPI (_Okapia johnstoni_).]
[Sidenote: African Antelopes.]
The west, south, and east corridors contain a portion of the collection
of mounted Mammals for which there is not room in the gallery
immediately adjoining. The specimens placed here include a large
number of species of the finest African Antelopes, animals remarkable
for their beauty, for their former countless numbers, and for their
threatened extermination in consequence of the inroads of civilized man
into their domain.
[Sidenote: Giraffes and Okapi.]
In a case at the head of the staircase leading to the east corridor are
several mounted specimens of Giraffes, and near by a skeleton of the
same. Alongside the former is placed a case containing the heads and
necks, together with skulls, of the various local races of Giraffes;
while in a third are displayed three specimens of their near ally the
Okapi (fig. 14) of the Congo Forest, as well as a skeleton of the same.
[Sidenote: Collections of Humming-Birds.]
The collection of Humming-Birds (_Trochilidæ_) arranged and mounted
by the late Mr. John Gould, and purchased for the Museum in 1881,
is principally shown in the vestibule leading from the hall to the
Fish-gallery, but a few cases are placed on the pillars of the
staircase. Another large collection of these birds, presented in 1913
by Mr. E. J. Balston, of Maidstone, is exhibited in the corridor
leading to the Whale-room.
WEST WING.
The whole of the west wing of the building is devoted to the
collections of recent Zoology.
(A) GROUND FLOOR.
[Sidenote: Bird Gallery.[8]]
The ground floor is entered from the west side (left hand) of the
central hall, near the main entrance of the building. The long gallery,
extending the entire length of the front of the wing as far as the
west pavilion, is assigned to the exhibited collection of Birds, the
study-series of the same group being kept in cabinets in a room behind.
[Sidenote: Systematic Series in Wall-cases.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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