The first room was full of rocks and minerals, which was good for a couple of minutes, but after the 50th ammonite and the 20th dinosaur tooth, everything starts to look the same. The next room, however, seemed to forget that it was in a natural history museum - it was a vivarium, with lots of live snakes. My snake knowledge is pretty limited, but i'm fairly sure they were all evil, and wanted to bite me. The best one was this guy - i'd never seen the actual 'rattle' of a rattlesnake before:
There was also a room about eclipses, which was interesting, but again, i'm not entirely sure if it belonged in a natural history museum?
The best room of all was the final one, which housed the most stuffed animals i've ever seen in my life. And i'm not talking teddy-bears. Think of any animal, and i'm pretty sure they had a stuffed one in this museum. There were, to name a few: an elephant, bears (grizzly, polar and koala), a tiger, a turtle, a platypus(!), a lemming, and every bird under the sun. It seemed a bit morbid really, as they were all very much dead. It felt a bit like a paused David Attenborough DVD.
A view across to the glass cases - in which there's an elephant, a skunk, and a excessively large helping of armadillos.
Three different types of heron. (Not seven, Mum and Dad!)
The main taxidermy gallery at the museum. Like Noah's ark, but more dead. And only one of each animal...
A stuffed badger. What's not to like?
Overall, it was a good museum, but not the most cheerful of experiences! Still, at least i've seen a real platypus now. Stupid creatures...
Fantastic. A visit to Horsham Museum was on my list of things to do on my own when the schools finally go back and stay back (weather permitting). However, I'm pretty sure that their collection of shoes won't measure up to that (insert collective noun here) of stuffed animals. I'm particularly interested in badgers but that one is disturbing and could alter my attitude to them forever. It's its facial expression.
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