LIFE OF FLOWER 77 



graphs of the various human races to be kept in the 

 study series. 



It must not, however, be supposed that Flower, 

 during his too brief tenure of the office of Keeper 

 of the Zoological Department, by any means confined 

 his attention to the mammalian galleries. On the 

 contrary, he had with his own hands rearranged two 

 of the cases in the bird gallery, namely, those con- 

 taining the humming-birds and the woodpeckers ; and 

 shortly before his resignation he was planning the re- 

 arrangement of all the cases in this section ; a work 

 which since his death has been carried out to completion 

 on the same lines. In this connection it is, however, 

 only fair to state that in the obituary notice of Flower, 

 published in the " Year-Book" of the Royal Society for 

 1901, full justice has not been done to his predecessors. 

 The passage in question runs as follows : 



" Every effort was made to give the specimens 

 natural postures and natural surroundings. Thus, for 

 example, the tree on which the woodpecker was at 

 work, was cut down, the foliage modelled in wax, and 

 all the surroundings carefully kept. Hovering birds 

 were suspended by fine wire or thread. Birds making 

 nests in holes, such as the Manx shearwater, sand- 

 martin and kingfishers, either had the actual parts or a 

 model of these beside them, just as the nests of the 

 gannets and guillemots on the Bass Rock were shown 

 with their natural environment." 



The obvious inference from this would be that the 

 cases of birds mounted in imitation of their natural 

 environment, inclusive of the splendid model of a portion 

 of the Bass Rock, with its feathered inhabitants placed 



