BIRD GALLERY. 
39 
the flat or raft-like character of the breast-bone. Owing to 
the rudimentary character of their wings, these birds have 
not the power of raising themselves in flight. They 
include the largest existing birds, the Ostriches, Emus, and 
Cassowaries, as well as the small Kiwi or Apteryx of New 
Zealand, together with the extinct Moas of the same country, 
and the Eoc (^:)?/or?^^.s) of Madagascar. An egg of the 
latter is placed alongside eggs of the existing species of the 
group. 
Down the middle line of the gallery, as well as in many Groups of 
of the bays, are placed groups showing the nesting habits ^nd Nests, 
of the best-known British birds. The great value of these 
groups consists in their absolute truthfulness. The sur- 
roundings are not selected by chance or imagination, but 
in every case are carefully-executed reproductions of those that 
were present round the individual nest. When it has been 
possible, the actual rocks, trees, or grass, have been preserved, 
and where these were of a perishable nature they have been 
accurately modelled from nature. Great care has also been taken 
in preserving the natural form and characteristic attitudes of the 
birds themselves. Among the more attractive cases are, near 
the centre of the gallery, a pair of Puffins, feeding their 
single young one, and Black-throated Divers, with their eggs 
in a hollow in the grass on the edge of a mountain-loch in 
Sutherland. Hen-harriers, the male grey and the female brown, 
with their nest among the heather from the moorland of the 
same county. On the left of this pavilion a Peregrine Falcon's 
nest, on the ledge of a rocky cliff, containing three white downy 
nestlings. Various species of Ducks, especially the Red-headed 
Pochard, on the sedgy border of a Norfolk mere. This is 
under the archway leading into the pavilion. In the last 
bay but one on the right side is a nest of the Heron, in 
a fir-tree, with the two old and three nearly fledged young 
birds. Various species of Gulls, and a particularly beautiful 
group of the graceful Arctic Terns from the Shetland Islands, 
in the middle line towards the west end of the gallery and in 
the eighth and ninth bays. In the eighth bay on the right side 
are Plovers, Sandpipers, Snipes, &c., some of which (especially 
the Ringed and Kentish Plovers) show the wonderful adaptation 
