10 BRITISH MUSEUM. 



GENERAL PROGRESS AT THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM. 



The figures for the attendances of visitors at the Natural History 

 Museum for 1926 show a decrease on week-days of 4,873, the number 

 being 432,495 as against 437,368 in 1925. This, however, was more 

 than balanced by an increase in Sunday attendances from 69,857 in 

 1925 to 78,818 in 1926, making a grand total of 511,313 as compared 

 with 507,225. The number of visitors during the general strike in 

 May was somewhat more than half the normal attendance. It is very 

 satisfactory that the total attendances should have increased in com- 

 parison with 1925, a year in which large numbers of people were at- 

 tracted to London by the British Empire Exhibition. The number of 

 persons present at the demonstrations of the Official Guide during the 

 year was 14,468, a decrease of 1,214 on that for the previous year. 



Their Majesties the King and Queen visited the Museum on 13 March; 

 Her Majesty the Queen again on 19 March; His Majesty the King of 

 Spain on 2 July; and His Highness the Emir Feisal, K.C.M.G., Viceroy 

 of Mecca, on 5 "October. 



About 60 of the participants in the celebration of the Jubilee of the 

 Mineralogical Society of Great Britain and Ireland v/ere entertained 

 at the Museum on 22 September. 



The Museum Building. 

 The Trustees continued throughout the year to devote much atten- 

 tion to the serious and increasing difficulties arising from the inadequacy 

 of the Museum Building. Nearly all the exhibition galleries are over- 

 crowded, but from the standpoint of practical necessity a much more 

 serious matter is the congestion of the study collections and the lack of 

 room for those engaged in research. Although recourse has been and is 

 still being had to palHative rearrangements, their effect is soon exhausted 

 and the scope for them is very limited. The Museum is unfortunate 

 in that its needs have become acute at a time of such severe financial 

 stringency, but the Trustees remain hopeful of finding means for the 

 effective maintenance of its work. 



The Exhibition Galleries. 



Progress was made during the year with the preparation of a habitat - 

 group of African elephants in one of the bays of the Central Hall. In 

 this connection the Government of the Union of South Africa most 

 generously provided trees and other vegetation from the Knysna 

 Forest, Cape Colony, the home of the elephants in the group. The 

 Trustees gratefully acknowledge the care and trouble taken by the 

 South African Department of Forests in obtaining suitable examples 

 and conveying them undamaged to the coast. An exhibit illustrating 

 the disastrous effect on marine bird life of oil- waste discharged from 

 ships was installed in the Central Hall. In the Fossil Reptile Gallery a 

 specimen of a large armoured dinosaur from Alberta was set up and 

 a plaster cast of a nest of dinosaur eggs was placed on exhibition: 



