ANIMAL HABITAT GROUPS 



BY BARTON WARREN EVERMANN 



DIRECTOR OF THE MUSEUM OF THE CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



THE modern natural history museum has come to regard 

 itself, and to be regarded by the public, as an educational 

 institution, working in co-operation with the public and 

 private schools, for the good of all the children, as well as 

 adults, who can be brought within its influence. To justify its 

 existence, a public museum must be of real service not only to 

 investigators but to the general public as well. 



The investigator's needs are met by furnishing facilities for 

 research which will result in the advancement of knowledge 

 and its diffusion among men. 



The other function of the public museum is that of usefulness 

 to the public in educational ways. This function has not 

 always been realized or received attention; inde;d, there are 

 museums here and there that are no more in touch with the 

 world of today than are the fossils, whether dead or living, 

 which they contain. Not until recently has this function been 

 appreciated or received much attention ; but this obligation to 

 the public is now the dominant and controlling thought in many 

 museums, great and small. Perhaps the greatest advance in 

 recent years in making museums really educational has been 

 in the installation of exhibits of animals and plants or other 

 natural objects. 



In the first place, the buildings and their included exhibition 

 halls are designed and constructed with special reference to the 

 most effective display of the particular kinds of exhibits to be 

 installed. The problem of proper lighting has, apparently, re- 

 ceived but scant consideration in the past. The exhibition halls 

 in the old type of museum building were lighted by means of 

 numerous large windows on two or more sides; the exhibits were 

 placed in cases with glass fronts and ends, placed against the 

 walls between the windows, or in rectangular cases with glass 

 on all four sides arranged with mathematical precision in rows 

 across the hall. The light outside the cases being stronger 

 than that in them, very annoying reflections resulted. All sorts 

 of objects elsewhere in the room, particularly those white or 

 light in color, and, of course, the visitor himself, could be seen 

 reflected from the case and were seen quite as plainly as the 

 objects in the case; all of which was very confusing. This 

 difficulty has been met in the modern natural history museum 

 by doing away entirely with windows; all the lighting is by 

 means of skylights, thoe over the exhibits letting in more 

 light than those over the visitor, with the result that annoying 

 reflection is reduced to a minimum; and by slightly tilting the 

 plate-glass fronts of the exhibition cases, the reflection is en- 

 tirely avoided. Artificial lighting is also provided for in the 

 same way, so that the exhlits can be lighted at night atia on 

 dark days. 



The next important advance is in the type of exhibit. The 

 improvement has been especially marked with habitat or ecologi- 

 cal groups. Wonderful strides have been made in recent years 

 in the art of taxidermy and museum installation. Formerly, the 

 birds, mammals or other animals to be shown were, as Director 

 Lucas of the American Museum of Natural History has well 

 said, most literally stuffed, then fastened to flat boards or 

 perches of the jig-saw period of architecture, after which they 

 were placed in long rows in glass cases in which, as already 

 stated, the visitor saw himself quite as distinctly as he saw the 

 animals meant to be shown. There were no rocks, plants, shrubs 

 or other accessories to indicate in any way the natural envir- 

 onment in which the animals might be found when alive. Now, 

 if the object to be exhibited is some animal, the species is shown 

 as a group or family, a pair of adults, male and female, the usual 

 number of young, and perhaps some additional young 1 of dif- 

 ferent ages; the nest, if a bird, or perhaps the den if a mammal, 



and the whole group set down among real trees and shrubs, 

 annual plants, grass, rocks and sand, and other objects which 

 together make up a bit of just such landscape as one would 

 find the animals in should he seek them alive and in the wild. 

 Of course, only a limited amount or number of units of the 

 actual environment can bz shown by means of real objects; but 

 the setting is made more complete by means of a painted back- 

 ground which joins the real in such a way as to make it diffi- 

 cult, if not imp r ible, to tell where the real ends and the 

 painting begins. 



Of institutions that have attained remarkable success in the 

 installation of habitat groups of mammals and birds, the Cali- 

 fornia Academy of Sciences merits special mention. The new 

 Museum of the Academy is located in Golden Gate Park, which 

 Superintendent John McLaren, with his wonderful genius for 

 landscape gardening and ability to combine wild nature with 

 artistic beauty, has made what foresters and others regard as 

 perhaps the most beautiful park in all the world. The first 

 unit of this Museum was recently completed and opened to the 

 public. Two important parts of this building are the California 

 Mammal Hall and the California Bird Hall. The former is 

 180 feet long by 60 feet wide ; the latter 140 feet long and 60 

 feet wide. In the mammal hall provision is made for 15 large 

 mammal groups, four groups of intermediate size and 22 small 

 panel groups. The cases are built in the wall on the opposite 

 sides of the long hall. The large ones are each 25 feet long, 13 

 feet deep, front to back, and 18 feet to the ceiling glass. The 

 back of the case is curved, its length being 40 feet. 



The taxidermist in nearly every instance went to the place 

 where the animals were collected, studied the environment and 

 collected the accessory materials such as rocks, sand, shrubs, 

 flowers, etc., needed in the composition of the group. The artist 

 accompanied the taxidermist and he too, studied the scenery and 

 made his field studies or sketches for guidance in painting the 

 finished background. Through co-operation in this way and 

 exchange of views, in other words, by means of team work be- 

 tween the taxidermists, artist and director of the Museum, really 

 remarkable results have been attained. My aim, as director, 

 has been to make these groups as true to nature, realistic and 

 educationally valuable as possible. Not only has scientific ac- 

 curacy and value been kept in mind, but the popular educational 

 purpose of the exhibits has been kept constantly in view. Nor 

 has the esthetic and artistic value of the exhibits been forgotten. 

 And still another important consideration has not been for- 

 gotten, and that is the preservation and conservation of our 

 wild life. In the selection of species to be exhibited and in the 

 descriptive labels this question has been constantly kept in mind. 



It is not possible to convey by means of photographs an ade- 

 quate conception of the beauty of these groups, but the repro- 

 ductions in this issue of American Forestry will give some 

 idea of their character. 



That these exhibits are appreciated by the public is evidenced 

 by the comments of the visitors of whom there have been more 

 than a million since the Museum opened. 



The mammal groups were prepared under the immediate direc- 

 tion of Mr. John Rowley, assisted by Mr. Paul J. Fair and Mr. 

 Joseph P. Herring; the bird groups by Mr. Fair, assisted by Mr. 

 Arthur L. Reed and Miss Olive E. Cutter. The backgrounds 

 of these remarkable groups were painted by several different 

 artists Charles Abel Corwin, Charles Bradford Hudson, 

 Maurice G. Logan, and Worth Ryder. All the work was done 

 under the supervision of the Director of the Museum. 



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