18 ZOOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS. [uPPER 
Chili, and various specimens of Propithecus and other Lemurida) (see 
p. 6) from Madagascar. 
THE NOKTHERN ZOOLOGICAL GALLERY. 
FIRST EOOM. 
At the entrance into this gallery is placed a specimen of a Gigantic 
Land Tortoise [Testudo elephantina). This kind is found in Aldabra 
only, a small uninhabited island in the Indian Ocean, north-west of 
Madagascar. Formerly found in great abunndance, it is now nearly 
extinct, the majority of the specimens having been captured by the 
crews of passing vessels, so that a few only remain. The specimen 
exhibited is a male, which weighed 870 pounds, and although known 
to have been more than 80 years old, was still growing at the time of 
its death. 
The Wall Cases 1-8 contain a collection of Nests of Wasps and 
Bees ; some are constructed of clay, or of sand, while others are of 
paper, made of an admixture of the scrapings of wood and vegetable 
fibre. Specimens of the various insect fabricators of these structures 
are in many instances attached to the nests. Case 6 contains the remains 
of the square lintel of a door of one of the government offices in St. 
Helena, showing the destruction caused by a species of White Ant. 
In Case 8, a series of the different stages of development, and of the 
products of the Japanese Silk-moths, prepared and set up in Japan, is 
exhibited. Cases 9-16 contain a collection of the Nests of Birds; 
among the more noticeable are the playing avenues of the Australian 
Bower Birds, the pendulous nests of the American Orioles, and the 
gelatinous nests of the Esculent Swallow ; and that of the San Gero- 
nimo Swallow, which is a long pendulous tube formed entirely of the 
seed of a plant, secured together by the saliva of the bird ; the hollow 
for the eggs is at the top, inside the tube ; the bird has placed a false 
entrance on the side to deceive its enemies. Various nests of Hum- 
ming Birds, Honeyeaters, Tailor Bird and Lyre-tailed Menura, are 
also shown. The Table Cases 1-8 contain specimens illustrative of 
the various changes of Insects, their nests and structures ; the cocoon 
of the gigantic Goliath Beetle of Western Africa, the clay nests of 
various species of White Ants, the various Vegetable Galls, and a series 
of the nests of Spiders ; among these the nests of the Trap-door Spider, 
and a remarkable flat web, constructed by an Australian species, are 
shown here. On the walls are suspended some specimens of the large 
gigantic Land-Tortoises which once inhabited in large numbers the 
Galapagoes and the islands of Mauritius, Rodriguez, and Aldabra. 
They formed a very important article of food to navigators in the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries during the protracted and 
tedious voyages across the Indian and Pacific Oceans, but are now 
almost extinct. 
