British Museum (Natural History).
First Floor.
Second Floor.
Lower Mammal Gallery.
The Lower Mammal-Gallery is entered from the western corridor of the central hall. Together with the adjacent corridor, it contains the greater part of the exhibited series of recent Mammals, with the exception of the Cetacea, Sirenia, and Proboscidea, which are downstairs, and the orders Primates, Chiroptera, Insectivora, and Rodentia, which are in the upper gallery. As three special guides[17] are devoted to these galleries, a very brief notice will serve on this occasion. Both stuffed specimens and skulls and skeletons are exhibited, although the former constitute by far the greater portion of the series. A few remains of extinct types, or plaster reproductions of the same, are introduced here and there; and photographs of living animals are hung on the walls, where will also be found some instructive series showing the modifications assumed by the teeth of certain groups. Wherever possible, the horns and antlers of the Ruminants, as well as the horns of the Rhinoceroses, are placed in juxtaposition to the animals to which they respectively belong.
Fig. 33.—The Platypus or Duck-bill (Ornithorhynchus anatinus).
Fig. 34.—The Yellow-bellied Pangolin (Manis tricuspis) in a characteristic attitude.
Ruminants, etc.