BRITISH MUSEUM.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 30 December 1927, Page 9

BRITISH MUSEUM.

MORE TREASURES ADDED. SAFE CUSTODY OF A FILM. LONDON, Dec, 20. A copy of the film “Chang,” which depicts jungle life in Siam, and records simultaneously the sounds made by the animals when they were being photographed, has been presented to the trustees of the British Museum. According to a condition imposed by the donors —the directors of Paramount Pictures —the film is to he preserved in the Museum in an airtight ease and not opened until 1977. Among recent additions to the Zoology Department is a specimen, 9ft Gin long, of the skull of a sperm whale, killed off Durban, and presented by the High Commissioner of South' Africa. Two skulls have been acquired of the extremely rare gastropod, Volnuta badnalli.

The Department of Entomology has been enriched by a collection of beetles and plant bugs from the 1 Champion bequest. The beetles number about 120,000, and constitute, probably, the richest European collection of the kind in this country. Mr. G. T. Bethune Baker has presented a collection of 8406 butterflies and moths, and 5574 specimens of small British moths.

* The donations- to the Geological Department include 50-0 seeds and fruit collected by Miss M. 'Chandler in the Upper Eocene clay of Nordle, Hants. Mi\ Clayden has added four slabs form the Lower Pormian sandstones, with unusual tracks of, as yet, unexplained origin. There have been received from Professor Kirer, of Oslo, casts and specimens of the remarkable primitive fishes found by him in the uppermost Siluran rocks of Ringerike, Norway.