Art: AFRICA UNDER GLASS

Shown on the opposite page are picture windows on a far continent—two of the four new dioramas unveiled this week at San Francisco's California Academy of Sciences. They bring the academy's total of dioramas to 36, rivaling in number—and in quality—those of any natural history museum in the world.

Despite the advantages, and popularity, of this kind of integrated display over the old-fashioned stuffed-animal-on-a-pedestal type, it is impossible for museumkeepers to supply the demand. It takes time and money, skill and patience, to create good dioramas. First, a hunter has to bag some subjects worth putting on display. After that, at...

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