36 
WEST WING. 
In the middle of the gallery and in the spaces between the wall- 
cases are placed various isolated groups of particular interest, 
among which the visitor will doubtless be attracted by those 
Gronps of showing the nesting habits of our best-known British birds. The 
and Nests!^*^^ great value of these groups consists in their absolute truthfulness. 
The surroundings 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 were accurately 
modelled from nature. Far more care has also been taken in 
preserving the natural form and characteristic attitude of the 
birds than was formerly the case in museums, as a large 
number of the old specimens in the wall-cases unhappily 
testify. This beautiful and instructive series is still in process of 
formation. Among the most attractive cases are, near to the 
entrance to the gallery, on the right, 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. Various species of Ducks, especially the Eed- 
headed Pochard, on the sedgy border of a I^orfolk mere. This 
is in the sixth recess on the left side. 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 
seventh recess on the right. Then follow Plovers, Sandpipers, 
Snipes, &c., some of which (especially the Einged and Kentish 
Plovers) show the wonderful adaptation of the colouring of the 
eggs and young birds to their natural surroundings for the 
purpose of concealment. Beyond are Ptarmigans and Caper- 
cailzies from Scotland, and on the left Woodpigeons and Turtle 
Doves building their simple, flat nests of sticks in ivy-clad 
trees. In the Pavilion at the end, are Sandmartins and King- 
fishers, showing, by means of sections of the banks of sand or 
earth, the form and depth of the hole in which the nests are placed, 
and there is here also (on the right) a fine group of Gannets 
and other sea-birds from the Bass Eock in the Firth of Forth. 
