Repository: UIHistories Project: Course Catalog - 1886-1887 [PAGE 27]

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Museums and Collections.

The Museum of Zoology and Geology occupies a hall 61 by 79 feet, with a gallery on three sides, and is completely furnished with wall, table, and alcove cases. It already contains interesting and important collections, equaled at few, if any, of the colleges of the West. They have been specially selected and prepared to illustrate the courses of study in the school of natural history, and to present a synoptical view of the zoology of the State. Zoolo —The mounted mammals comprise an unusually large and instructive collection of the ruminants of our country, including male and female moose and elk, bison, deer, antelope, etc.; and, also, several quadrumana, large carnivora and fur-bearing animals, numerous rodents, and good representive marsupials, cetaceans, edentates, and monotremes. Fifty species of this class are represented by eighty specimens. The collection of mounted birds (about five hundred specimens of two hundred and forty species) includes representatives of all the orders and families of North America, together with a number of characteristic tropical forms. Many of these specimens are excellent examples of artistic taxidermy. A series of several hundred unmounted skins is available for the practical study of species. The set of skeletons contains examples of all the orders of mammals and birds except Proboscidea, together with typical representatives of the principal, groups of reptiles, amphibians, and fishes. The cold-blooded vertebrates are also illustrated by a very useful collection of alcoholic specimens, plaster casts, and mounted skins of the larger species, both interior and marine. Conchology is illustrated by several thousand shexls belonging to seventeen hundred species; together with alcoholic specimens of all classes and orders. The collection of Illinois shells is creditable, although incomplete.