美国自然史博物馆

　　The American Museum of Natural History

　　When an art museum wants a new exhibit, it buys things in finished form and hangs them on its walls.When a natural history museum wants an exhibit, it often must build it realisti-cally-from a mass of material and evidence brought together by careful research.

　　An animal, for example, must first be skinned.Photographs and measurements are used to determine the animal's structure in a natural position——fighting, resting, or feeding.Then muscle forms are built and a plaster shell is made.Finally the skin is pulled over the shell like a wet glove.This completes the animal subject.

　　Displaying such things as stone heads, giant trees, and meteorites is basically mechanical.Most other natural history exhibits present more difficult problems.For instance, how can a creature be exhibited when it is too small to be seen clearly？In these cases, larger——than——life models are built.The American Museum of Natural History has models of fleas, houseflies, and a myriad other insects enlarged up to seventy-four times.The models show the stages of the insects' development and the workings of their bodies.

　　美国自然史博物馆

　　当一个艺术博物馆需要举办新展览时，馆方往往购买精美的成品，然后将它们挂在墙上。当一个自然史博物馆需要办展览时，工作人员却往往得通过认真的研究工作，获得大量的资料和实据，从而造出一件活生生的展品来。

　　例如，一只动物必须先剥其皮，再利用照片和测量法确定该动物在一种自然姿势中——斗殴、休息或进食的形态。然后造出肌肉模型，做好石膏外壳。最后将皮肤像湿手套一样罩在外壳上。这才完成了那件动物展品。

　　陈列像磨石头、巨树和陨石之类的东西，基本上是靠机械操作的。多数其他自然史展品则带来更多的难题。比如，一个小得看不清的生物如何展出呢？面临这些情况，便要制作大于实物的模型。美国自然史博物馆里陈列着放大到74倍的蚤、家蝇和万千种其他昆虫。这些模型展示了各种昆虫的各个发育阶段和它们的身体功能。

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