National Museum of Natural History
10th St. & Constitution Ave., NW
Washington, DC
All 27 orders, encompassing 9,000 known bird species from all over the world, are represented here in realistic settings with their differences in form, size, and color emphasized. Exhibits illustrate migration, reproduction, feeding habits, flight, and ways in which birds have been important to man.
Birds of special interest are shown in their habitats: the Antarctic penguins; the ostrich, complete with babies just out of their eggs; and the argus pheasant, noted for its enormous plumes. Birds are shown that were once abundant in North America but became extinct by the hand of man, including the penguin-like great auk, the Carolina parakeet, and the passenger pigeon. So numerous as recently as the 19th century that they darkened the sky while flying overhead, not a single passenger pigeon remains alive today; the last—named Martha—died in captivity in 1914.
