SOUTHEAST WING 



Mammals of the World 



Contiiiuiii*:; ciist Iroiii the IkiII wlicrc the ajx's and inoukcy- arc, we 

 pass the elevators, to enter the hall of the Southeast Wing, devoted mainly 

 to a series of exhibits illustratina; the characters of niannnals. their 

 principal groups, or orders, the main sub-divisions of these, known as 

 families, and various interesting peculiarities of habits and structure. 

 Walking around the room from left to right one passes from the egg- 

 laying Platypus to man, represented by the figure of an Australian 

 native, armed with the characteristic boomerang. Incidentally one 

 sees the modifications of form and structure for various modes of loco- 

 motion, notices the superiority in brain of mannnals over other verte- 

 brates, learns that animals that outwardly look alike may be very 

 distantly relattnl, sees illustrations of all)inism and melanisn. and is 

 shown how the coat of the hare changes from bro\m to white. 



Above the cases is a frieze representing marine scenes, which serves 

 as a background for groups of porpoises, dolphins, and other small mem- 

 bers of the whale family. The most striking ol)ject in the hall is the 

 life-size model of a sulphur-bottom whale, sevt^nty-nine feet in length. 

 The original of this specimen was captured in Xew- 

 Model of foundland, and the model is accurately reproduced from 



up ur- careful measurements. This huge creature is not only 



bottom , , p ,. . • , , <- 1 



■^^^jg the largest of livmg ammals, but, so far as we know, 



the largest animal that has ever lived : a s])ecimen of 



this size weighs from sixty to seventy tons, about twice as much as 



Brontosaurus. As can be seen by examining the models of a whale's 



head attached to the pillar, the whalebone which takes the place of teeth 



hangs in great plates from the inside of the upper jaw. This whalebone 



acts as a strainer in the mouth of the whale, and extracts the small animals 



from the sea water which the whale takes into his mouth when feeding. 



The food consists mostly of tiny crustaceans less than an inch in length. 



Although whales and porpoises live in the water, they are not fishes, but 



are warm-blooded and breathe by means of lungs, not gills. The whale 



must come to the surface to breathe and the so-called "spouting" is 



merely the result of the warm air being expelled from the lungs when he 



breathes. A whale does not spout water, as is commonly supposed. 



Models to scale of the other whalebone whales, and the toothed sperm 



whale, and reproductions of smaller whales and i)orpoises are hung near 



for comparison. 



