When Rover saw him he barked more girl, just waked up. She had gone into 



sharply, and sprang at the window, in this room to play house, and had fal- 



front of which was a chair. The chair len asleep. Rover is the hero now in 



was moved, and there sat the little that family. 



EASY LESSONS IN EVOLUTION. 



WITH the growing popularity of 

 South Kensington Museum 

 the directors and curators of 

 its priceless collections have 

 increased their efforts to adapt some 

 of the accumulated store of knowl- 

 edge which those collections repre- 

 sent to popular comprehension. The 

 results of this activity have of late 

 become manifest, both in the great 

 Central Hall, and in the incomparable 

 collection of British birds. The birds, 

 which have been for many years a dull 

 assemblage of specimens, all stuffed 

 alike, and bearing an unnatural com- 

 mon resemblance to one another, are 

 being rearranged in cases with a 

 proper environment of rocks and 

 shrub, sandhill or marsh; and with a 

 skillful and successful attempt to dis- 

 play them in their habitat as they live. 

 The work is not nearly complete; it 

 will hardly be so for two years to 

 come; but already some of the cases, 

 especially those of the solan geese, the 

 eagles, the cormorants, and the almost 

 vanished British bustard, are most in- 

 teresting and beautiful object lessons 

 in natural history. A lesson of a 

 different kind is being begun in the 

 Central Hall. During the period of 

 Sir William Flower's directorship a 

 number of specimens of canaries, pig- 

 eons, and domestic fowl were col- 

 lected, and it was sought to show by 

 means of these the variations which 

 breeding might produce on a single 

 type. Two cases of these specimens 

 now stand in the Central Hall. On 

 the top of the " pigeon exhibit " is the 

 common rock pigeon. Below him, tier 

 upon tier, are ranged the carriers, tum- 

 blers, pouters — the thirty odd breeds 

 which fanciers have produced from the 

 original ancestors. Many of these 



specimens were prize-winners in their 

 day. 



The same distinction appertains to 

 the twenty or thirty varieties of 

 canary, which are in an adjoining case, 

 and which are the descendants of 

 some ancestors whose little wings 

 were not bright yellow at all but a 

 dull brownish green. The domestic 

 fowl in the same case are intended to 

 exhibit similar artificial peculiarities, 

 though it should be noted that the nine- 

 feet-long tails of the Japanese bantam 

 are not so much the result of breeding 

 as of eccentric cultivation, for the un- 

 fortunate bird's feathers are carefully 

 trained in this way throughout the 

 whole of an uncomfortable life. But 

 the lesson in evolution which these 

 cases seek to convey is to be carried 

 out on a much larger scale. At the 

 further end of the Central Hall are to 

 be ranged a number of specimens of 

 dogs, cows, goats, horses, cats, every 

 species, in fact, of which mankind has 

 produced definite breeds. Even fish, 

 bees, silk-moths, and the greatly modi- 

 fied native oyster will find representa- 

 tion here. The nucleus of the dog 

 collection has already been formed, 

 and includes a mastiff of the old Eng- 

 lish breed, heads of the Irish wolf 

 hound, Danish and French mastiffs, 

 Russian and Mexican lap dogs, re- 

 markable for their smallness, and Ful- 

 lerton, the famous coursing grey- 

 hound. Numerous skulls, and several 

 mummied dogs, given by Professor 

 Flinders Petrie, will add to the interest 

 of this collection. The authorities 

 hope that persons who lose pure-bred 

 or prize animals by death will present 

 their bodies to the museum in order 

 that they may be added to this ex- 

 tremely interesting display. 



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