556 children's room in Smithsonian institution. 



The aquariums and the gilt cages are the center of the room, and, 

 because of the happy varicolored life they contain, must always 

 remain the true center of attraction to little folks — the point to which 

 they will turn and return, again and yet again, from the fascinating 

 and even more marvelous, but silent, wonders in the cases along the 

 walls. 



The cases themselves are quite low, even the top shelves being 

 within reach of younger eyes. Arranged above them are a number of 

 prints and water-color paintings, in which some of the furred and 

 feathered creatures below are shown in action; and this idea is to be 

 carried still further in the panels of the wall, for these in course of 

 time are to be tilled with interesting and lifelike pictures by artists 

 who paint lovingly their friends of the wood and field. 



But it is within the cases that the child will find the true soul and 

 purpose of the Children's Room. Often he may turn to the singing 

 birds and the darting fish for refreshment, but with the wonders along 

 the wall he will linger, and the memory of them will cling and blend, 

 and so become a part in his life that shall not perish or grow dim. 



In speaking of the young observer in this article as " he," I do 

 not wish it to be understood that the room is not fully as interesting 

 and valuable to little girls. I am only, for the most part, picturing a 

 boy, such as ''the one I knew best," who, a good many years ago. was 

 obliged to learn a good many things vaguely and at long range. I 

 find that he is still hungry to know some of the things he never could 

 find out then, and I am fancying what he might have felt and done if 

 in that far-away time he had found himself, all at once, among these 

 precious cases. 



They are arranged as a child would wish them, and he will begin, 

 perhaps, with those on the left as he enters — the cases of the birds. 

 At the first of these he will linger. Within are the "Largest and 

 smallest birds of prey. 11 He will look at the great condor of the 

 Andes, and the bald eagle, and then at the tiny sparrow hawk; and he 

 will wonder why these are so big and that so little, and if tin 1 bald 

 eagle could whip the condor in a fair fight. He thinks it likely, 

 because the condor has blunt claws — so blunt, the card says, that he 

 can not carry off the big animals he sometimes kills. The condor is 

 bigger than the bald eagle, but he is not so good looking, and the 

 child does not like him. He likes much better the largest owl, the 

 great eagle owl, who lives in the vast, trackless woods of northern 

 Europe and Asia — a monarch of the far. dim stillness; and if the child 

 is a little girl, she adores the smallest of his race, the tiny elf owl, 

 who might well be a real sprite to dart from the leafy, dewy tangle of 

 evening. 



The small observer passes on. " Some Curious Birds" come next, 

 and he must see them, even if he has to come back to the bald eagle 



