NEW HABITAT GROUPS 57 



and organize all accumulated information, while at the same time hold- 

 ing his own opinions and fonnulating- his own theories. The work of 

 the new Darwin would niarshall to the front or banish to oV)livion the 

 many tangled theories of the present, and all so clearly and convincingly 

 that there would be forced upon him who reads a repetition of the effect 

 of "The Origin of Species," the conviction that, after all, the task was 

 an easy one, for there could be no other conclusion. 



An important feature of the celebration is the special exhil)ition in 

 the Hall of Forestry and the new Darwin Hall comprising carefully 

 selected specimens and groups of specimens bearing upon the Darwinian 

 theory of Evolution through Natural Selection; also a valuable collec- 

 tion of Darwiniana consisting of letters, writings and portraits of Charles 

 Darwin, as well as a series of photographs of Darwin's contemporaries. 

 The exhibition is open free to the public and will remain in place till 

 March 12. 



NEW HABITAT GROUPS OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



THE high degree of realism and artistic effect achieved in the 

 installation of the Habitat Groups of North American Birds 

 is unique in Museum exhil)ition. Begun in 1898 with the 

 Bird llock Group of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and now nearing comple- 

 tion, the series has entailed a large amount of travel and study on the 

 part of Mr. Frank M. Chapman, Curator of Ornithology, and inval- 

 uable assistance on the part of the Museum's taxidermists and artists. 



Conceive the ingenuity and labor involved in imitating, accurately 

 as to locality, flawlessly as to workmanship, the snow or water, rocks 

 and vegetation of from sixty to one hundred sixty square feet of a given 

 region ; then so to blend the real foreground with a painted background 

 that, c[uite as in nature, the eye passes from the flowers and birds near 

 at hand, to meadow^s that stretch to the horizon or to mountains and sky. 



The east side of the Bird Group Hall has been previously opened to 

 the puV)}ic. The west side was opened formally to INIerabers of the 

 Museum on February 26 to mark the completion of six new groups, 

 a demonstration of the method of construction being given by the 

 Cuthbert Rookery Group, only partly finished at that time. On the 

 following day the gallery was thrown open to the general public. 



