88 Zoology. 



probably excessive. The number at the present day cannot be 

 less than 400,000, including 100,000 eggs. 



By the time of Dr. Giinther's accession to the Keepership of 

 the Department, a great improvement in the tone of the latter 

 had taken place. The accounts were more regularly kept, and the 

 expenditure of the following financial year was not mortgaged in 

 advance, as had been so often the case in previous years. The new 

 Keeper showed great vigour in ameliorating the condition of the 

 public galleries, replacing the bleached and faded specimens by 

 well mounted examples. A particular feature of his adminis- 

 tration was the introduction of a series of British birds and their 

 nests, mounted so as to represent the actual surroundings of 

 the latter. This was a scheme which I had always had much 

 at heart, and the first of these natural groups was that of the 

 Coots, which I procured at Avington Park in Hampshire — parent 

 birds, nest, and eggs — the whole group being presented to the 

 Museum by my old friend, Sir Edward Shelley. A few groups 

 were presented by Mr. Theodore Walker, of Leicester, but the 

 bulk of the birds and nests were obtained for the Museum by Lord 

 Walsingham, to whom the public owes a deep debt of gratitude. 

 One feature of these exhibitions of " British birds in their haunts " 

 is not generally known. In each case the scene is as nearly a 

 reproduction of the actual facts as could be attained. The birds 

 that actually built the nest and laid the eggs are there, and the 

 bush or tree, the herbage and the flowers, are also reproduced, 

 as they were on the day when the nest was taken. Although 

 America has claimed the services of one of the ladies who did 

 the reproduction of the leaves and flowers, we can still command 

 the services of other clever ladies who are adepts at modelling 

 foliage, so that the counterfeit leaves and flowers can scarcely 

 be distinguished from the actual living plants. Dr. Giinther 

 determined from the first to reproduce nothing but the actual 

 facts, so as to give, as far as possible, a true life-picture of 

 the birds as they were in life. Thus specimens in their worn 

 nesting plumage have not been replaced by handsomer birds 

 which did not belong to the actual nest. This much, therefore, can 

 be claimed for the Museum series of British birds and their nests, 

 that the cases represent faithfully the actual conditions as they 

 existed on the day when the nests were discovered. 



