Page:In brightest Africa.djvu/286

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  • mals and a correct representation of the flora. In

the foreground on a sandbar in the river will be a group of hippos; across the stream and merging into the painted background, a group of impalla come down to water; in the trees and on the sandbars of the farther bank two species of monkeys common to the region; a crocodile and turtles basking in the sun near the hippos, and a few characteristic birds in the trees.

Another of these large corner groups will be a scene of the plains, a rock kopje with characteristic animals such as the klipspringer, hyrax, Chanler's reedbuck, and baboons on the rocks, the background leading off across the plain showing a herd of plains animals—and the adjoining group continuing the story by showing more of the species of the plains. The third of the large corner groups will represent a Congo forest scene with the okapi and chimpanzee perhaps, and such animals as may be associated legitimately with the okapi. The fourth group will be a desert scene, a water hole with a giraffe drinking and other animals standing by, awaiting their turn.

In these four corner groups we can present the four important physical features of African game country, and they can be supplemented, of course, by the scenes in the thirty-six other groups. The large groups, however, give opportunity for particularly striking scenic effects.

Lack of care in museum exhibition has come about in part at least because of the lack of permanence in the specimens exhibited. Now that we have reached a point in the development of taxidermy technique