Tom All-Alone's (2012)
“The fragility of the shimmering stained-glass wings, the sharp serrations on the articulated legs, and the density of the improbably long and heavy body. In reality, this creature is barely an inch long, but at this magnification there’s something faintly horrifying about the size of those eyes, and the monstrous efficiency of that hooked proboscis. And if you’re wondering where we are, this is the third room of the Northern Zoological Gallery of the British Museum; we are by the table marked Hymenoptera, and we – like Charles – are looking at a display devoted to bees. It’s only one of eight similar cases in this overcrowded room – in fact, there’s barely an inch of floor or wall space in either direction that doesn’t have its neatly arranged array of eggs, shells and mounted insects, or its furred or feathered exhibit staring beadily down from a glass case. The sheer variety of death on display here is rather overwhelming – even a little sickening – but as this room confines itself ...only to the banal and British, it lacks the glamour of the more exotic Mammalia room with its lions, tigers and bears, or the child-catching appeal of the stuffed giraffes in the central saloon.MoreLess
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