Come one, come all! See a rhinocerous with the head of a lion. See the amazing jackalope! See animals stuffed so long ago that their hides have cracked like hideous wounds! Ok, so the first two aren’t true. The Harvard Natural History Museum is, to be fair, quite amazing. The diversity and scale of its collections is impressive. And its collection of glass flowers (stunning!) and pin-stuck bugs of all kinds (sorry, Buddhists and bug lovers) are spectacular, even to the botanically and entomologically ignorant. Still, you’d think Harvard could spare a few bucks from its $34 billion endowment to keep up the taxidermic collection. The few pieces that have been repair (the gorilla comes to mind) look have these long painted-over scars that look like they’d been the subjects of horrible experiments before they met their cotton-stuffed fates.
Nonetheless, we had lots of fun in Harvard’s little shop of horrors and showed Mose the wondrous diversity of the biological world. Unfortunately, he still divides the animal world into two large groups: cats and dogs. A quick run-through of our visit is below:
Thanks for your visit, and posting that fun video of the museum’s 19th c. galleries. Do you have video of the new galleries? — Arthropods, Meteorites, Climate Change, or Nests & Eggs exhibitions? Much of Harvard’s endowment was given in restricted gifts…and the museum, although supported in part by the University, depends upon gifts, memberships and visitors’ admission tickets. Glad you enjoyed your visit. The museum is open 9 am to 5 pm 361 days a year..just a 6-7 minute walk from Harvard Square T –through historic Harvard Yard to 26 Oxford Street. Hope you’ll come again to see the Sea Creatures in Glass, made by the same father and son glass artists who created the Glass Flowers.
Wow, you found my blog entry fast! All in a day’s work, I guess. We did, indeed, have a great time. Keep up the good work.