In the long building which runs parallel to the Rue Cuvier are the galleries of anatomy and of anthropology. They occupy two large rooms on the ground floor, and the whole of the first storey round the courtyard, known as the Courtyard of the Whale. In its centre is a fine skeleton of an ordinary whale, and in one of the corners the skeleton of a spermaceti whale--in French “cachalot,” which, according to a fantastic etymologist, is derived from “cache à l’eau,” the animal being accustomed when threatened with attack to hide in the water. The first room in the gallery of anatomy is filled with skeletons of the largest sea-animals. The adjoining room contains human skeletons, among which will be remarked that of Soliman-el-Halir, the assassin of General Kleber, put to death with frightful torture by the avenging French, who barbarously adopted the mode of punishment of the barbarous country they had invaded. Strange that the French, nearly a century after this offence against humanity, should still preserve a monument to revive its memory. To notice but one point, the finger-bones of the right hand are wanting. The hand was burnt off before the final punishment was applied--that of impalement, which the assassin endured for six hours without uttering a groan. A narrow staircase leads to the first floor, in which the ante-chamber is full of animals’ heads. In the second room we are in the midst of monsters, most of which formed subjects of study to the two Geoffroy Saint-Hilaires, intent on finding immutable laws where science had previously seen nothing but the sport and caprices of chance. “Ritta Christina Parodi” was the name given to two heads on a single body born at Sassari in Sardinia, March 12, 1827. The two heads lived about eight months, one of them dying on the 20th of November, the other shortly afterwards, but not until there had been time to make, in regard to this strange being, some curious observations. Further on may be seen Philomèle and Hélène, two bodies on one pair of legs. They also lived. Finally, in the same order, are Olympe and Thérèse, joined together by the top of the head. In the third room are the great anthropomorphous or man-shaped apes, arranged in an attitude not natural to them, since in nature they walk on hands and feet, but which brings out more vividly their resemblance to humanity. The broken teeth, the fractured limbs of these rangers of the forests--orang-outangs, chimpanzees, and gorillas--are evidence of their fights, their struggles, their adventurous life. The orang-outang is a war trophy. It belonged formerly to the collection of the Stadtholder of Holland, whence it was sent to Paris by the victorious French army, without being claimed and sent back by the allies in 1815, as undoubtedly would have been its fate had its history and its actual position been known. [Illustration: DROMEDARY IN THE JARDIN DES PLANTES.]