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PART II. 

 ZOOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS. 



In the grounds at the back of the Museum a few live animalh 

 indigenous in Ceylon are placed on exhibition in temporary 

 shelters. The mammals include a leopard, bears, a tiger cat (Felis 

 ulmrrina), a jackal, palm or toddy cats, civet cats, porcupines, a 

 bandicoot rat, mouse deer, hog deer, &c. The birds are represented 

 by a pelican ibis presented by Her Excellency Lady Blake, a 

 pelican, purple herons, Malay bitterns, India koels, Brahminy kites, 

 scops owl, and an Alexandrine paroquet. A young rufous-bellied 

 hawk-eagle has been loaned by His Excellency the Governor 

 (Sir Henry Blake, G.C.M.G., F.Z.S.). A small tank contains some 

 monitors or water lizards, called ""kabaragoya" in Sinhalese, and 

 in a small cage there is a chameleon from Chilaw, 



On the other side of the block of buildings in which the Mineral 

 Gallery is situated (see plan) there are two sheds containing 

 respectively, the skeleton of a sperm whale or cachalot (Phi/sele/- 

 tnacrocejjJialus) and of the whalebone whale (Balcenoj^tera mdica). 

 The carcases of whales are stranded from time to time on the shores 

 of Ceylon. Some of them seem to have met their death at the 

 hands of whalers and to have drifted by gale and current to 

 Ceylon. A whalebone whale was washed ashore in Weligam Bay 

 in August, 1884, such bones as were recovered being placed on the 

 front verandah of the Natural History Gallery upstairs ; another 

 carcase drifted ashore at Ambalangoda in September, 1894 ; the 

 almost complete skeleton was brought to the Museum, and is the 

 one DOW lying in the large cadjan shed ; it measured 65 feet in 

 length. This species of whales has the distinction of being the 

 largest of all known animals, living or extinct. 



A spermaceti whale or cachalot stranded on the south coast of 

 Mannar in September, 1889 ; its remains are now exhibited in the 

 smaller shed, with the exception of the lower jaw, which dropped 

 into the sea while the work of salvage was proceeding and was 

 lost. Another carcase arrived at Athuruwila near Bentota in June, 

 1904, in a high state of decomposition ; the lower jaw, which alone 

 carries the functional teeth, was missing. In November, 1904, 

 another decomposed sperm whale minus the lower jaw was 

 stranded at Mount Lavinia. The teeth of the upper jaw of the 

 sperm whale are vestigial structures imbedded in the gum. 



At the foot of the main staircase leading to the upper floor of 

 the Museum there may be seen a small glass case containing 



