WEST WING. 
31 
Highness the Prince of Wales, as representing the Trustees, 
replied. 
Above the first landing the staircase divides into two flights, 
each leading to one of the corridors which flank the west and 
east sides of the hall, and by which access is gained to the 
galleries of the first floor of the building. At the southern end 
of these corridors a staircase from each, raised on an arch which 
spans the hall, join to form a central flight leading to the second 
or uppermost floor. On the landing at the top of this flight 
is placed a marble statue by Chantrey of Sir Joseph Banks statue of 
(b. 1743, d. 1820), the munificent patron of science and scientific ^^nks. 
men, who for forty-one years presided over the Eoyal Society, and 
was an active Trustee of the Museum. His splendid botanical 
collections are preserved in the adjoining gallery, but his 
unrivalled library of works on natural history, also bequeathed to 
the Museum, remains in the old building at Bloomsbury, in the 
entrance hall of which the statue, erected by public subscription 
in 1826, stood, until it was removed to its present situation by 
direction of the Trustees in the year 1886. 
The west corridor contains a portion of the series of British 
birds with their nests (see the following page), for which there 
•is not room in the Bird Gallery on the ground floor. The 
specimens placed here belong to the smaller kinds, being mostly 
of the Perching or Passerine order. 
In the east corridor is placed at present the collection of Gould 
Humming-birds (TrocJiilidm) arranged and mounted by the late Humming-°^ 
Mr. John Gould, and purchased for the Museum after his death Birds, 
in 1881. The resplendent colours and singular varieties of form 
presented by these fairy-like objects must always excite feelings 
of admiration and wonder in all who gaze upon them. A special 
guide-book, pointing out the most interesting features of this 
collection, with a general account of the geographical distribu- 
tion and mode of life of the humming-birds, has been published 
,by the Trustees.* 
WEST WING. 
The whole of the west wing of the building is devoted to the 
collections of recent Zoology. 
* 'A Guide to the Gould Conection of Humming-birds.' Price twoponce. 
