10 NATURAL SCIENCE [July 



curator finds hints, suggestions, and actual information of value to 

 himself ; whereas the Eeport of, say, the British Museum, contains 

 little but lists of donations and the numbers of specimens registered 

 during the year, with similar matter of no use to anybody in the 

 wide world. 



Whales at the British Museum 

 It is not as though our museums had nothing of general interest to 

 record, nothing of special interest to curators of other museums. At 

 the British Museum (Natural History), for instance, the enlightened 

 administration of Sir William Flower has introduced many novelties, 

 which may be casually alluded to as having occupied the time of 

 such and such assistants or artisans, but which are not explained in 

 the Annual Eeport. One such interesting and important addition 

 has been completed this very month. No museum has hitherto 

 solved the difficulty of exhibiting the outward form of the various 

 kinds of whales, which battle the taxidermist's art on account 

 of the oily nature of their skin. At last, however, Sir William 

 Flower has solved the problem in a most satisfactory manner, and 

 the result is a unique addition to the Department of Zoology in the 

 museum over which he presides. The new Gallery of Cetacea was 

 opened to the public for the first time during the Whitsuntide holi- 

 days, and the exhibition is no longer a forest of dry bones, but a 

 selection of the principal types of cetacean life displaying not only 

 the skeleton, but also the outward form. Each skeleton is mounted 

 in the ordinary manner on iron supports, and a second frame of more 

 elaborate construction is fixed on one side — the side from which the 

 visitor first sees the specimen. This frame reproduces the original 

 contour of the animal, and is covered with a peculiar composition 

 somewhat similar to papier in ache ; this represents the skin, and is 

 finally painted with a tint and gloss as nearly life-like as possible. 

 When the visitor stands on one side of the gallery, the animals thus 

 appear as if living, while from the other side he observes the skele- 

 ton and realises its relation to the soft parts. The four principal 

 specimens are a whalebone whale (Balacna biscayensis) from fce- 

 land, 49 feet in length ; a fin-whale (Balacnoptera musculus) from 

 the Moray Firth, 69 feet long ; a smaller fin-whale (Balacnoptera 

 borea/is) caught in the Thames near Tilbury ; and a gigantic sperm- 

 whale (Physctcr macroccpthalus) from Thurso, 54 feet in length. In 

 addition to these there are other specimens, notably the mandible 

 of a Balaena twice as large as the complete skeleton exhibited. 

 We congratulate not only the Director of the Museum who has 

 devised and superintended this important new departure in the 

 exposition of zoology, but also Mr Edward Gerrard, junr., and his 

 staff, who have so admirably carried out the technical part of the 

 work. 



