
Fishes 
tt SECOND FLOOR, SOUTH CENTRAL WING 
In the middle of the hall are various cases showing characteristic scenes 
of bird life. A group of ptarmigan in seasonal plumage is 
at the entrance. Unlike most birds the ptarmigan has three 
distinct molts a year: From the pure white of winter it passes in the 
spring into the dark gray-brown plumage of summer. It again sheds 
its feathers in the fall, acquiring a plumage of lighter brown which har- 
monizes more nearly with its surroundings. Then later it passes into its 
Ptarmigan 
Grentiiak winter plumage of white. Beyond the ptarmigan group is 
the great auk case and the Labrador duck group; both of 
these birds are now extinct, and there are only four mounted 
specimens of the former in this country. 
In a case near the center of the hall is an exhibit illustrating the differ- 
ences in structure of the beaks and claws of birds, and some of the habits 
of various species of North American woodpeckers. 
At the north end of the hall is a nearly complete collection of the birds 
of paradise of the world, presented by Mrs. Frank K. Sturgis. Birds of 
paradise are confined exclusively to New Guinea and a few 
adjacent islands. This collection illustrates the remarkable 
modifications that the feathers of a single group of birds 
may undergo in nature. 
Labrador 
Duck 
Birds of 
Paradise 
Finback Suspended from the ceiling of this hall is the skeleton of 
Whale a finback whale, sixty-two feet in length. 
CORRIDOR OF CENTRAL PAVILION 
ReEcENT FISHES 
The doorway at the north end of the hall of the birds of the world 
leading to the rear of the bird of paradise case opens into the gallery of 
the Auditorium and to the corridor devoted to the general collection of 
recent fishes. This hall contains representatives of the marine and 
fresh-water fishes of the world. The exhibit includes typical examples of 
the various groups of vertebrates popularly comprised in the term 
“fishes” and is arranged to show first the most primitive fishes, the sharks, 
then successively various groups leading up to the teleosts or bony fishes, 
which were the last to appear in the course of evolution. ‘These groups are 
as follows: lampreys and hagfishes, eel-like creatures with round sucking 
mouths and no jaws, hence not really fishes in the strict sense of the word; 
sharks and rays, the most primitive, that is the most ancient type of fishes; 
chimeeroids or rat-fishes, a group of highly modified sharks living mostly 
in the deep sea; lungfishes, an ancient group represented at the present 
time by three kinds or genera, living respectively in the rivers of Australia, 

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