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/7- Botanicke Oddćleni NarodnIho Musea v Prazc. Lc dćpartemcnt de botanique du Musie national i Prague. L’exposition Les derniires flettrs du printe/nps, 1957.

17. The Botanicał Department, National Museum, Prague. The exhibition Lale Spring Flowers, 1957.

The generał collection also contains a great number of interesting spccimens, malnly belonging to species which have died out or been exterminated by man. Our iarge penguins, migratory pigeons, Nestor and Caroline parrots, Labrador ducks, skeletal remains of dodos and other similar prepared specimens are greatly esteemed by spccialists and noted in scientific literaturę.

The coliections on display are only a tiny fraction of our study coliections, which include coliections of skins of mammals and birds, batrachological, herpetological and ichthyological specimens in tanks, and large coliections of mollusc shells, etc., and are obviouslv far morę recent than those on display; many of them are being added to at the present time as a result of our research work expeditions. They include materia! collccted in Turkey, Grcece, Crete, Yugoslavia, France, Bułgaria, Algeria and the tropical countrics.

In 1953, the entomological coliections were removed from the Department ot Zoology. They are now administered as a separatc department devoted entirely to the study of the tracheates. Our coliections of tracheate families had grown to include seyeral million specimens.

The shortage of space forces the Museum to seek additional premises for housing its coliections and conducting its work (fig. ;/). In 1946 it staged its exhibition on Africa throtigb the Eyes of a Big-game Hunter (fig. ; 6) not in the Department but in the Museum rooms, and it drew over 130,000 yisitors. It gave our staff an opportunity of presenting our first big diorama representing a stretch of countryside in East Africa, with its fauna. An exhibition of big gamę trophies installed in Breznice Castle, 60 miles from Prague, draws an average of 10,000 yisitors a year.

At this time, the Department of Zoology is mainly occupied in repairing the damage caused both to the exhibitions and study coliections by the occupation and by the bombardment that occurrcd during the fighting at the time of the Liberation in May 1945. The Department’s actiyities fali into two main divisions, one relating to research (study of the theoretical and economic side of zoology, planned taxo-nomical and regionał research) and the other to cducational work of a popular science naturę (lecture courses, exhibitions and publications).

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( Trans lated fro;u the C^ęcb.)