The exhibits of Economic Zoology at present occupy the northern division of this hall. In the western wall-case are specimens showing the injuries caused to trees by various insects. The table-cases contain examples of the damage done in Britain to fruit, roots, corn, and garden and vegetable produce, with specimens of the insects, and hints as to methods of destruction. There are also examples of injury done by insects abroad to cotton, tea, coffee, etc. In the cases under the windows are various parasites affecting man and domesticated animals.
Staircase and Corridors.
Statue of Darwin.
On the first landing of the great staircase, facing the centre of the hall, is placed the seated marble statue of Charles Darwin (b. 1809, d. 1882), to whose labours the study of natural history owes so vast an impulse. The statue was executed by Sir J. E. Boehm, R.A., as part of the “Darwin Memorial” raised by public subscription. It was unveiled and placed under the care of the Trustees of the Museum on the 9th of June, 1885, when an address was delivered on behalf of the Memorial Committee by the late Professor Huxley, P.R.S., to which His late Majesty King Edward VII. (then Prince of Wales), as representing the Trustees, replied.
Statue of Banks.
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 give access to the galleries of the first floor of the building. Near the southern ends of these corridors two staircases join to form a central flight leading to the second floor. On the landing at the top is a marble statue by Chantrey of Sir Joseph Banks (b. 1743, d. 1820), who for 41 years presided over the Royal Society and was Trustee of the Museum. His botanical collections are preserved in the adjoining gallery, but his library of works on natural history, also bequeathed to the Museum, remains at Bloomsbury, where the statue, erected by public subscription in 1826, stood until it was removed to its present situation in 1886. On the wall above is displayed a series of unusually fine heads of Indian Big Game Animals, bequeathed by Mr. A. O. Hume, C.B., in 1912.
Fig. 14.—A Female Okapi (Okapia johnstoni).
African Antelopes.
The west, south, and east corridors contain a portion of the collection of mounted Mammals for which there is not room in the gallery immediately adjoining. The specimens placed here include a large number of species of the finest African Antelopes, animals remarkable for their beauty, for their former countless numbers, and for their threatened extermination in consequence of the inroads of civilized man into their domain.