46 MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY 



Room 302 



The Thayer Room 



(N.B. The Zoological Museum is also often entered via this room 

 which, with Room 301, connects with the Botanical Museum.) 



This room contains the birds of North America. The superb col- 

 lection of beautifully mounted individuals is a monument to the 

 discriminating pertinacity of John Eliot Thayer, a benefactor of the 

 Museum all his life. He made this collection and left it to the Mu- 

 seum at his death. Here the bird lover who observes afield may 

 solve his problems of bird identification. The birds in this room 

 might well have been shown in connection with those of the Hol- 

 arctic Room, number 306, did the arrangement of the building 

 permit. 



Adjoining the Thayer Room, as one enters the Main Hall from 

 this direction, there is an important case of extinct and vanishing 

 birds. This includes two great auks, which are among the finest in 

 existence; George Washington's pheasants, among the oldest 

 mounted birds in America and some of Alexander Wilson's original 

 mounts — from which he drew the plates for his American Orni- 

 thology. Among other objects of interest is the last net for taking 

 Passenger Pigeons which was used in New England. 



