How to See the British Museum in Four Visits | Page 4

Before leaving this room, or ante-room, to the great
zoological sections of the museum, the visitor should notice the
varieties of horns,--straight and tortuous, but all graceful,--of different
kinds of hoofed animals.
Advancing eastward the visitor arrives in
THE SOUTHERN ZOOLOGICAL GALLERY.
Here the visitor is still in the midst of the hoofed beasts. The way lies
between two rows of animals. Of these the visitor should notice
particularly the wild oxen of India and Java; compare the Indian
rhinoceros with that of South Africa; and notice the hippopotamus
family, from South Africa, as well as a diminutive specimen of the
Indian elephant, and a half-grown elephant, from Africa. Having
noticed these ponderous creatures, the attention of the visitor will be
next attracted to the Llamas, which are arranged in the first two
wall-cases. Of these, the wild are generally brown, and the tame of
mixed colours. The next fourteen wall-cases are filled with specimens
of the different species of Oxen and the Elephant tribe. Among the
former the visitor should notice the white bulls of Scotland and Poland:
the splendid Lithuanian bison, with his shaggy throat, a present from
the Russian Emperor; the bison of the American prairies; and the
elando. The specimens of the elephant tribe, ranged in the upper
compartments of these cases, include the tapir of South America; the
tennu, from Sumatra; the European boar, with its young; the Brazilian
peccari: and other curious animals. Here, too, are specimens of the
Armadillo tribe. The attention of the visitor will, however, be soon
riveted upon an animal which, with the beak of a duck and the claws of
a bird, has the body of an otter. In Australia (its native country) this
singular animal is commonly called a water mole, but to scientific men
it is known as the mullingong; it is placed in the same order with its
neighbour, the spring-ant or echidra, also a native of Australia. Before
leaving these cases, the visitor should pause to notice the Sloths, and
particularly the repulsive aspect of the yellow-faced sloth of South

America.
The visitor should now pass to the cases marked from 17 to 30. These
are devoted to the Horse tribe and Deer. Here the reindeer from
Hudson's Bay, the red fallow deer of Europe, the elk, and the cheetul of
India, will catch the eye immediately. The beautiful South African
zebra is here also, grouped near the Asiatic wild ass, and the Zoological
Society's hybrids of the zebra, wild ass, and common donkey. The
upper shelves of the cases are devoted, as usual, to the smaller
specimens of the tribe below. Here are the European roebuck, the West
African water musk, the Javan musk, the white-bellied and golden-eyed
musk. Having examined these zoological specimens, the visitor should
proceed on his way east to
THE MAMMALIA SALOON.
This saloon is one of the most interesting parts of the exhibition to the
general visitor, as he sees here at a glance the various classes of the
highest order of the animal creation, all grouped after their kinds, and
in that gradation of development which nature has assigned them.
Those specimens which are placed on the floor in the central space of
the room include some large varieties of the Bears, and a few small
specimens of Seals, including the young of the harp seal, with the white
fur, which clothes them on their first appearance in the world, and the
young of the Cape of Good Hope eared seal; but these isolated
specimens should not engage the attention of the visitor before he has
followed the systematic arrangement or classification adopted with
regard to the animals deposited in the wall-cases that line the saloon.
The first series or family of animals to which, according to Cuvier, his
particular attention should be attracted are
THE MONKEYS,
ranged in the first eleven wall-cases. These cases contain the species of
monkeys found in the Old World. The varieties in colour, shape, size,
and attitude, are endless. Here are the green monkeys from Western
Africa; the white-throated monkey from India; the bearded monkey,
with a republican air about him; and the monkey who appears to have
had his ears pulled, but is in reality known to scientific men as the
red-eared monkey; both from Fernando Po: the Risley of monkeys,
called the vaulting monkey, with his white nose; and the talapoin, from
Western Africa; the gaudy macaque, known as the brilliant from Japan;

that dingy gentleman, the sooty mangabey, from Africa: the African
chimpanzee (to whom satirical gentlemen with a turn for zoological
comparisons, are greatly indebted); the ourang-outan, with his young,
from Borneo; the presbytes, dusky and starred, from Singapore,
Malacca, and Borneo; and the drill and mandrill, from Africa. The
Monkeys of the New World are grouped in six cases