SOUTHEAST WING 

 Mammals of the World 



Continuing east from the hall where the apes and monkeys are, we 

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

 to a series of exhibits illustrating the characters of mammals, their 

 principal groups, or orders, the main sub-divisions of these, knoAMi 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 mth the characteristic boomerang. Incidentally one 

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

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

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

 distantly related, sees illustrations of albinism and melanisn, and is 

 shown how the coat of the hare changes from brown 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 object in the hall is the 

 life-size model of a sulphur-bottom whale, seventy-nine feet in length. 



The original of this specimen was captured in New- 

 Model of foundland, and the model is accurately reproduced from 

 u p ur- careful measurements. This huge creature is not only 

 Whale ^^^^ largest of living animals, but, so far as we know, 



the largest animal that has ever lived : a specimen 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 wliales 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 porpoises are hung near 

 for comparison. 

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