Bengal Natural History Museum

Bengal Natural History Museum ( Darjeeling)

The Bengal Natural History Museum is at a distance of around 1 km from the railway station.[Exact location:Below chowrasta on the back side of Gorkha Rangamancha Bhawan or Bhanu Bhawan].It remains open from 9 a.m to 5 p.m on all days except on national holidays.

The Museum was built in the year 1903,the idea for starting the Museum was to provide the visitors to have an opportunity to obtain information about the birds and butterflies of the hill areas.At that time there was no intention that the collection should be such which would provide the students to study the fauna of the hills.due to such unsatisfactory reasons new building was formed in 1915.The Bengal Natural History Museum was thus formed in 1923 for the management of the museum.


Insects:
Butterflies,dragonflies and beetles are well represented.


Birds:
There are around 822 birds specimens belonging to 405 species and subspecies of the area including two foreign species received as gift. 
It also contains few collection of birds eggs and its nest though less in number but very attractive and beautiful.
Mammals

67 species of mammals are well displayed in the museum.
like:
-Rarer cats
-The Panda
-Himalayan flying squirrels
-clouded leopard.




The museum also has the following items beautifully represented:

• Reptiles and fishes


• Insects


• Taxidermy

Library:
There is a small library comprising of  few valuable books. around 125 volumes of 'the fauna of British India'. 


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