Ornithology and entomology are parts of the Museum collections in which development much input belong to the amateurs. That is why we pay here more attention to the people donated the birds and insects to the Museum most actively.

Bird collections In the oldest inventories of the Museum, the first name of bird donator was that of N.N.Demidoff. He delivered some eggs of cassowary, African ostrich, and humming-birds.
About 150 mounted skins of birds collected by N.M.Przhewalsky in Central Asia were donated in 1874 by his brother.
A collection of birds of Paradise was brought to the Museum by a merchantman A.S.Khomyakov. They still embellish the Museum display.

The most abundant contributions to the ornithological collections of the Museum were those of S.A.Buturlin and G.I.Polyakov, two outstanding Russian birds researchers of the early XX century. Buturlin's collection contains 6420 birds, and that of Polyakov is even bigger containing 7540 birds. In total, it constitutes about ninth part of the entire ornithological collections of the Museum.

Egg gatherers constitute a special kind of collectors in ornithology. Among most known of them in Russia is V.V.Leonovich, a Secretary for Research in the Poushkin's Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow. His skillfully prepared collection of layings and nests consists of 2035 items that came from various parts of FSU, and bequeathed it to this Museum.