LIBRARY 
 
 New York State Veterinary College 
 
 ITHACA, NEW YORK 
 
 11. 
 1892 
 
 Shufeldt, R. W. 
 
 Scientific taxidermy for museums. 
 
Cornell University Library 
 Q 11.U5 1892 
 
 Scientific taxidermy for museums (based 
 
 3 1924 003 349 366 
 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
 THE 
 
 Sflouter Itetentranj Hthrarg 
 
 FOUNDED BY 
 
 ROSWELL P. FLOWER 
 
 for the use of the 
 
 N. Y. State veterinary College 
 
 1897 
 
SMITHS.ON.IAN INSTITUTroN; 
 
 UN IT'Ep) .SPATES BtATlp'i^ AL MUSEUM. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC- TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS 
 
 • \MS£D &N'M 'iTUDV OF THE.. JfMlTED STATES 
 ..; , GOVERNMEN^COLLECTiONSy 
 
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 R. W, SHUFELDT, M. D. 
 
 From the Report of the U. S. National Museum fo> iSga, paces 369-436 
 
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 WASHING JON s 
 
 GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
 1894. 
 
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Smithsonian institution. 
 
 United states national museum. 
 
 SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS 
 
 {BASED ON A STUDY OF THE UNITED STATES 
 GOVERNMENT COLLECTIONS). 
 
 BY 
 
 R. W. SHUFELDT, M. D. 
 
 From the Report of the IT. S. National Museum for 1892, pages 369-436 
 (with Plates XV-XCVI). 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 GOVERNMKNT PRINTING OFFICE. 
 I894. 
 
as», / -y 7/ £ 
 
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SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 
 
 (BASED ON A STUDY OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT COLLEC- 
 TIONS.) 
 
 By R. W. Shl-feldt, M. D. 
 
 In a valued communication, dated January l(i, 1893, the present 
 writer was honored by a request from the United States National 
 Museum to furnish to it a paper upon what may briefly be termed 
 "scientific taxidermy" in its widest sense. My attention was espe- 
 cially invited to the progress that had been made in the art of taxi- 
 dermy, as exemplified on the part of the various methods used in the 
 preparation of, and the modes of mounting resorted to, iu the case 
 of all kinds of animals for museum exhibition. It was proposed 
 that in a general way this study should review the field, in so far as 
 the collections contained in the U. S. National Museum and Smith- 
 sonian Institution were concerned, from those times when specimens of 
 mounted animals were first being made by those institutions to the day 
 when the opening of the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago per- 
 mitted people to see, in the varied groups and single examples of pre- 
 served animals from nearly every department in nature sent tliere, 
 what could be accomplished in such matters through the operations of 
 skilled moderns in the taxidermic art. What was expected of me was 
 further definitely defined, in the letter to which reference is made above, 
 in the following words : " We should like to have your unbiased opinion 
 of the different pieces and kinds of work, whether favorable or unfavor- 
 able, and should be glad to have you indicate, so far as you feel dis- 
 posed to do so, what lines of work, in your opinion, promise the best 
 results if carried further, and what you think should be abandoned." 
 This injunction, when faithfully performed in the case of any art what- 
 soever, is the only proper test of our progress in it, and it is through 
 comparison alone of early accomplishments, work recently performed, 
 and what is being done in the particular line at the moment, that we 
 can inform ourselves precisely where we stand. Very soon it became 
 possible for me to direct my attention to this matter, and a preliminary 
 overlook of the field convinced me that my chief duty lay in making 
 just criticism of the results attained on the part of the artist in tax- 
 idermy, rather than an enumeration and description of all the details of 
 H. Mis. 114, pt. 2 24 369 
 
370 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 technique of that art. Much that refers to the last-named class of work 
 . has been and will be shortly still more thoroughly set forth in certain 
 papers and reports published by the National Museum. Some, valuable 
 instructions of that kind, I understand, are in press at the present 
 writing, and ere long the scientific taxidermist will have before him 
 all that refers to correct methods of the mounting of animals, as well 
 as plastic modeling and everything that has any bearing thereupon. 
 
 The present paper, then, will have little or nothing to do with what 
 might properly be called the chemistry and mechanics of taxidermy, 
 but will rather deal with it from the standpoint of the art student and 
 biologist. At some points these two lines, however, converge, but never 
 distinctly intersect each other; and my chief object will have been 
 attained, if this paper proves itself to be a useful adjunct to the others 
 upon kindred lines of inquiry. Properly, it will fill the place of the last 
 of the series, for the reasons that have just been stated. 
 
 History goes to show that there has been just as much of an evolu- 
 lution, of progressive advancement, in the science and art of taxidermy 
 as there has been in the case of the necessity for, the growth and im- 
 provement in the building of, the stocking, and the management of 
 museums. To a very large extent these two developments have been 
 pari passu in nature, and, in one sense, they are quite dependent upon 
 each other. To instance my meaning, it may be said that a handsome, 
 instructive, and scientifically preserved group of animals may utterly 
 fail of a useful purpose by being placed upon exhibition in some poorly 
 lighted, indifferently ventilated, and otherwise unsuitable museum-hall; 
 while on the other hand no amount of architectural beauty and perfect- 
 ness in the latter will ever serve to shield a group of animals that have 
 been mounted by a person ignorant in all the departments of scientific 
 taxidermy, from the criticism that work of that kind is sure to have 
 continually poured down upon it by the intelligent natural historian. 
 
 It can be shown, then, that the taxidermic art, as in the case of all 
 the arts and sciences, has had its dawn, having been nursed in a cradle 
 of crude beginnings, far back in history, and since which time it has 
 enjoyed a very remarkable career of development. To me there is no 
 doubt but what it came into being with such pristine pursuits as pre- 
 historic tanning, the embalming of the human body, and those of cer- 
 tain domestic animals as the cats and dogs found in prehistoric remains 
 "of Egypt and elsewhere. Sure it is that Hanno, the very ancient Car- 
 thaginian navigator, in the record that he has left us of his African ex- 
 plorations, made five centuries before Christ, gives an account of his 
 discovery of the gorilla, and " having killed and flayed them, we con- 
 veyed their skins to Carthage." There they were preserved for many 
 generations, and are, no doubt, the Qorgones described by Pliny (146 
 B. C). 
 
 Our own Pueblan Indians, as the Zuiiians and others, make very 
 good "flat skins" of small birds to-day, an art no doubt traceable in 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 371 
 
 them to the Mexicans, and the latter have probably practiced it for 
 
 Montezuma, as stated by Oortez, possessed robes covered with the 
 skins of the Trogan and other brilliantly plumaged birds. From the 
 making of these flat skins for personal ornament to the desire to pre- 
 serve in their natural appearance similar forms, as well as other small 
 animals of all kinds, for the ornamentation of habitations, is both easy 
 to be imagined, and very probable what took place. Gradually there 
 was a demand for that kind of work, and it fell to the hands of those 
 most skilled in its performance. They were the early taxidermists. 
 Before specialization was ever dreamed of for the early arts of whatso- 
 ever kind, there always, so history teaches, existed a kind of an affinity 
 bonding more or less closely together, the naturalist, the medical man, 
 and the conservator of the curious in nature. Shakespeare's portrayal 
 of the London apothecary is illustrative of this, within whose 
 
 Needy shop a tortoise hung, 
 
 An alligator stuffed, and other skins 
 
 Of ill-shaped fishes. 
 
 Complete differentiation in certain quarters, in these days of the 
 manhood of those sciences, has not as yet been thoroughly brought 
 about, and even in some of the old German cities of the present time 
 we yet hear of organizations known as " The Society of Naturalists and 
 Physicians," and in some of our own late expeditions made under the 
 auspices of the Government, the duties of " surgeon and naturalist" 
 are relegated to one individual. 
 
 Now, although the mere preserving the skins of animals is an opera 
 tion to be easily traced back through nearly all races of people to the 
 dawn of history, this does not altogether hold true with the " mount- 
 ing " of animals.* 
 
 Taxidermists are quite agreed that this phase of the art is of com- 
 paratively quite modern origin, For instance, Montagu Browne has 
 remarked that — 
 
 Little is known of the beginnings of the practice of the " stuffing " or "setting 
 up " of animals for ornament or for scientific purposes ; and it is highly probable, 
 from what we gather from old works of travel or natural history, that the art is not 
 more than some three hundred years old. It was practiced in England towards the 
 end of the seventeenth century, as is proved by the Sloane collection, which in 1725 
 formed the nucleus of the collection of natural history now lodged in the galleries 
 at South Kensington. 
 
 It was not until the middle of last century that any treatise devoted to the prin- 
 ciples of the then little-understood art was published-in France, Reaumer's treatise 
 (1749) being probably the first. This was followed at intervals by others in France 
 and Germany, until the beginning of the present century, when the English began 
 
 * Probably, as Mr. Goode informs me, the oldest museum specimen in existence is 
 a rhinoceros still preserved in the Royal Museum of Vertebrates in Florence. This 
 was for a long time a feature of the Medicean Museum in Florence, and was origi- 
 nally mounted for the museum of Ulysses Aldrovandus in Bologna. It dates from the 
 sixteenth century. 
 
372 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 to move in the matter, and several works were published, notably those by E. Don- 
 ovan,* W. Swainson,t Capt. Thomas Brown,* and others. These works, however, 
 are now inadequate, and since the Great Exhibition of 1851, when the Germans and 
 French taught British taxidermists the rudiments of scientific treatment of natural 
 objects, several works have appeared upon the subject from the pens of American 
 and English authors, sneli as. I. H. Batty, $ R. Ward,|| and Montagu Browne. If 
 
 That the art is recent was also held by Dr. Holder, who, in an able 
 address given before the Society of American Taxidermists, said that 
 the— 
 
 First authentic examples in this comparatively new art with which we are familiar 
 are those produced through the patronage of the Prince Maximilian, of Nieu Wied, 
 Germany. This distinguished naturalist had spent several years in exploring the 
 bird region of North and South America. Equipped with every needful appliance 
 for successful research, he included in the personnel of his staff a practical taxider- 
 mist, and the numerous species of American birds and mammals, embracing many 
 types of great value, testify to the thorough exploration which the Prince accom- 
 plished in these regions. It was the good fortune of the American Museum of Nat- 
 ural History to come into possession of the entire collection of natural objects which 
 formed the well-known museum of this naturalist, and thus, through this collection, 
 we have representations of the earliest period of the art. 
 
 Among the numerous examples contained in the Maximilian collection are a num- 
 ber that yet bear the original label in the handwriting of the Prince. The frequent 
 occurrence of Meiner Reiser (my journey), accompanied by dates from 1812 upwards, 
 a period comprising a full three score years and ten, is recorded testimony of great 
 historical value. Unscathed as those specimens are by museum pests, they present 
 a most satisfactory evidence of the reliability of arsenical treatment as a means of 
 perpetuation well nigh indefinite. How much earlier the art was practiced we have 
 no definite knowledge. The numerous stuffed skins of reptiles, or rather mummies, 
 found in Egyptian tombs naturally claim our notice as perhaps the earliest exam- 
 ples.** 
 
 Extending over a very considerable period of duration we next find 
 the art of taxidermy passing through a stage of its development, of 
 which no end of examples quite parallel with it might be cited from 
 
 * Instructions for Collecting and Preserving Various Subjects of Natural History, 
 London, 1794. 
 
 tThe Naturalist's Guide for Collecting and Preserving Subjects of Natural History 
 and Botany, London, 1822. 
 
 t Taxidermist's Manual, Glascow, 1833. 
 
 § Practical Taxidermy and Home Decoration, New York, 1880. 
 
 || Sportsman's Handbook of Practical Collecting and Preserving, London. 1880. 
 
 ff Practical Taxidermy, London, 1879, second edition, 1884 ; also, article Taxidermy, 
 Encycl. Brit., ninth edition, vol, xxm, p. 89, from which the above quotation is 
 made. 
 
 ** J. B. Holder, Dr. Third Annual Report of the Society of American Taxidermists, 
 Washington, 1884, p. 40. In this connection it is well worthy of notice that in the 
 same report Mr. L. M. McCormick (then of the U. S. National Museum) presents us 
 with a most valuable and useful Bibliography of Taxidermy (pp. 91-112), wherein 
 the earliest work cited on the art is that of Johann Daniel Geire, which consists of 
 merely two pages from the Miscell. Acad. Nat. Curios, entitled "De vernice ad con- 
 servanda insecta et animalia," being published December 2, 1689. Nothing of any 
 importance, however, appearing between that date and the well known work of 
 Ferchault de Reaum, which was given to the world in 1748. 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 373 
 
 the early histories of other arts and sciences. Photography and chem- 
 istry are excellent instances of it. During the times to which I refer, 
 taxidermists both in this country and Europe, with but rare excep- 
 tions, could be grouped in two classes — the first, and by far the most 
 numerous, was chiefly represented by men coming from the lower 
 planes of society, who endeavored to throw as much mystery about 
 their operations as possible; in fact, to keep their art a secret one, and 
 if divulged at all, only done so at a high figure. The second class, as 
 a rule better men socially, consisted of those who seemed to think that 
 to either be a taxidermist or even to publish anything on the subject, 
 required an humble apology to society. My private library contains 
 works illustrative of both these classes. The first is a miserable little 
 volume of some thirty pages published by its author, Mr. S. H. Sylves- 
 ter, at Middleboro, Mass., in 1865, and entitled "The Taxidermist's 
 Manual, giving full instructions in mounting and preserving birds [etc.], 
 sec. ed. (Price, $1.)." Apart from the ridiculous meagreness of the 
 information it affords, a single leading page is entirely devoted to the 
 following "suggestion: " 
 
 As common things lose their charm, so is it more particularly in this art. A person 
 having this work should not leave it exposed to the eyes of the curious. The same 
 caution should he used in the practice. Work hy yourself that noue may know the 
 mysteries of the art, unless they are willing to pay for the information as you your- 
 self have done. 
 
 No less a book than the one published by Capt. Brown illustrates 
 the second class to which we have referred.* In his preface this author 
 remarks that^— 
 
 In the following treatise it has been my object to attend more to rendering the 
 meaning clear than to elegance of language; and, besides, to get the work up in a 
 style at once creditable and moderate in price, so that it might be generally useful. 
 At the same time I have preferred avowing myself the author to publishing the work 
 anonymously, being firmly of opinion that no man should publish on a subject which 
 he is ashamed to acknowledge, (p. vi.) 
 
 Such a "suggestion" as has been given us by Mr. Sylvester will 
 never again appear upon the page of any standard work devoted to 
 the art of taxidermy and published by a civilized nation any more than 
 Capt. Brown's thought of apologizing for the admirable little treatise 
 which he has given us on the subject will ever be repeated in a similar 
 work. Capt. Brown had the less to be "ashamed" of in his book, for 
 in his introduction he places himself upon the record by his observa- 
 tions as being one of the very first to sound the keynote, which, swell- 
 ing through the last quarter of a century, has had its due influence in 
 lifting taxidermy from the realm of an ignoble pursuit to the broad 
 
 *Thomas Brown (Capt.), F. L. S., late president of the Royal Physical Society, 
 etc. The Taxidermist's Manual; or, The Art of Collecting, Preparing, and Preserv- 
 ing Objects of Natural History, designed for the use of Travelers, Conservators of 
 Museums, and Private Collectors. London and Edinburgh, 1870. (Plates vi, pp. 150.) 
 
374 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 platform -of one of the most important and exact of all the sciences. 
 I refer to the paragraph in which he has said : 
 
 Although considerable advances have been made of late years in the art of taxi- 
 dermy, it is still far from perfection. This is to be attributed, in a great measure, 
 to the education of the persons who practice this art; for among all I have met 
 with employed in the preservation of animals, none have had the advantage of 
 anatomical study, which is quite indispensable to the perfection of stuffing. One or 
 two individuals, it is true, have attended to the structure of the skeleton of man 
 and a few of the more common animals, hut this is far from the information which 
 they ought to possess; for nothing short of a general and extensive knowledge of 
 comparative anatomy can qualify them sufficiently for an art which is so compre- 
 hensive and varied in its application (pp. 2, 3). 
 
 Prophetic words, indeed, and not in a few quarters has the prophecy 
 of this distinguished authority been largely fulfilled. More light, how- 
 ever, is needed in other places, and in many of our museums of the 
 very highest standing the examples .of taxidermy they offer us are 
 far, very far from our ideal of what they should be. 
 
 Charles Waterton is another worthy name that must not be forgotten 
 here, and fully seventy years ago, in his Wanderings in South America, 
 he wrote, in his quaint and impressive old style, yet pregnant with 
 truth: 
 
 Were you to pay as much attention to birds as the sculptor does to the human frame, 
 you would immediately see on entering a museum that the specimens are not well 
 done. This remark will not be thought severe, when you reflect that that which 
 was once alive has probably been stretched, stuffed, stiffened, and wired by the 
 hand of a common clown. Consider, likewise, how the plumage must have been 
 disordered by too much stretching or drying, and, perhaps, sullied, or at least 
 deranged, by the pressure of a coarse and heavy hand — plumage which, ere life had 
 fled within it, was accustomed to be touched by nothing rougher than the dew of 
 heaven and the pure and gentle breath of air. 
 
 These are potent words as coming from the pen of a man who wrote 
 them within a year or two of three-quarters of a century ago. Espe- 
 cially is this the case when that ingenious naturalist in the same work 
 enjoins that — 
 
 If you wish to he in ornithology what Angelo was in sculpture, you must apply to 
 profound study and your own genius to assist you. 
 
 You must have a complete knowledge of ornithological anatomy. You must pay 
 close attention to the form and attitude of the bird, and know exactly the propor- 
 tion each curve, or extension, or contraction, or expansion of any particular part 
 bears to tho rest of the body. In a word you must possess Promethean boldness, 
 and bring down fire and animation, as it were, into your preserved specimen. 
 
 "Eepair to the haunts of birds on plains and mountains, forests, 
 swamps, and lakes, and give up your time to examine the economy of 
 the different orders of birds, " is also the kind of study "Waterton 
 recommended in 1825 to those who desired to preserve birds in their 
 strictly natural attitudes as they assumed them in life and in nature. 
 
 Standing almost alone as he did as a sound instructor of the tax- 
 idermic art in the first quarter of the present century, he is represented 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 375 
 
 at this writing, or in the very last part of the century's last quarter, 
 by scores of teachers in Europe and America who entertain precisely 
 similar opinions. Not only this, but recruits are rapidly coming to the 
 ranks as time hastens on, and it is quite safe to predict that in another 
 century, or even less, the old-time "bird-stuffer" will cease to be found" 
 " in the flesh" among us. 
 
 Already I have given above, in the words of Montagu Browne, who 
 have been the chief promoters of this art in Great Britain ; other na- 
 tions also have in this way powerfully contributed to the material prog- 
 ress of taxidermy. In France the immortal names of Verreaux, Verdey, 
 and others had a most beneficial influence; and our own country has 
 been by no means backward in this particular. 
 
 Within the past ten years or more the published opinions of a num- 
 ber of these writers are the best evidences upon the substantial nature 
 of the progress of this science that we can here adduce, and by quot- 
 ing some af them I resort to the most effective means in my power to 
 illustrate what taxidermy has attained to in those places where its 
 standard is now considered to be at the highest plane of its present 
 development. 
 
 Turning again to the article Taxidermy, by Mr. Montagu Browne, 
 already referred to above, we find him concluding it thus : 
 
 A new school of taxidermy, with new methods, whose aim is to combine knowl- 
 edge of anatomy and modeling with taxidermic technique, are now coming to the 
 front, and the next generation will discard all processes of " stuffing" in favor of 
 modeling. Within the limits of an article like the present it is impossible to do 
 more than glance at the intricate processes involved in this. In the case of mam- 
 mals, after the skin has been completely removed, even to the toes, a copy is 
 made of the body, posed as in life, and from this an accurate representation of form, 
 including delineation of muscles, etc., is built up in light materials; the model is 
 then covered with the skin, which is damped and pinned in to follow every depres- 
 sion and prominence ; the study is then suffered to dry, and, models having been 
 made, in the case of large animals, of the mucous membrane of the jaws, palate, 
 tongue, and lips, these are truthfully reproduced in plastic material. The ordinary 
 glass eyes are discarded, and hollow globes, specially made, are hand-painted from 
 nature, and are fixed in the head so as to convey the exact expression which the 
 pose of the body demands. Birds, if of any size, can be modeled in like manner, 
 and fishes are treated by a nearly identical process, being finally colored as in a "still- 
 life "-painting. 
 
 To give a life-like appearance, attention is also paid to artistic "mounting." By 
 this is meant the surrounding of specimens with appropriate accessories, and it is 
 well exemplified by the new work shown in the natural history museum at South 
 Kensington, where, for example, birds are arranged as in a state of nature, feeding, 
 or flying to their young, sitting on their eggs, swimming in miniature pools, or 
 preening their feathers whilst perched lovingly side by side, and surrounded by 
 exquisitely modeled foliage and flowers. This, with correct modeling of the speci- 
 mens, which, except in rare instances, is not quite so striking in the new groups, 
 indicates the future of the art, the hope of which lies in the better education of tax- 
 idermists as designers, artists, and modelers. 
 
 Not only should they be better instructed in designing, in art, and in 
 modeling, but, what is quite as important, they should be trained espe- 
 
376 REPORT OP NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 cially in the power of correct observation in animal morphology, and 
 in other matters which will be enumerated further along. 
 
 Dr. Sharpe has given us a very able article touching upon the ques- 
 tion of artistic taxidermy.* He says : 
 
 At Leyden, where u staff of trained taxidermists is kept in the museum, some 
 attempt has been made to vary the usual mode of stuffing animals by representing 
 them in varied and active positions, and thus the general effect is never monotonous. 
 But this was never done in the British Museum, and the constrained attitudes of 
 many of the specimens exhibited at Kensington form part of a legacy from the pa- 
 rent institution, the bad influence of which it will take many years to efface. Thou- 
 sands of specimens have been unmounted already or have been transferred to ihe 
 duplicates and distributed to such provincial museums as prefer to tread in the old 
 paths, and will accept specimens belonging to the bad old times. 
 
 The credit of having broken away from time-honored tradition, in the mode of 
 mounting animals in this country is certainly due to Mr. John Hancock, who taught 
 how to combine scientific accuracy and artistic feeling. Mr. Hancock's name is at 
 Password throughout England wherever taxidermy is mentioned, and in London 
 his ablest representative has probably been Mr. A. D. Bartlett, the well-known 
 superintendent of the zoological gardens, to whom we owe many of our most beauti- 
 fully mounted specimens in the bird gallery. But the first to suggest this combina- 
 tion of art and taxidermy for an entire museum, was undoubtedly Mr. E. T. Booth, of 
 Brighton, whoso collection of British birds in the Dyke Road Museum, stiJl remains 
 one of the sights of England, and is not surpassed in interest by any natural history 
 exhibition in the whole world. Here may actually be seen our native birds in their 
 haunts, every species being represented as in a wild state, with corresponding nat- 
 ural accessories, reproducing as nearly as possible the surroundings as they were 
 when the birds were alive, and representing the scenes sketched by the collector 
 at the time of capture. Mauy years before we actually saw Mr. Booth's collection, 
 its fame had reached our ears, and the idea seemed to us to indicate what the museum 
 of the future, ought to be; thus we lost no opportunity of advocating this system of 
 artistic taxidermy in all our public lectures. At Leicester the notion was well 
 received, and some groups of British birds were mounted under the auspices of the 
 natural history committee of the town museum, until by the appointment of Mr. 
 Montague Brown, as the curator of the museum, Leicester obtained the services of a 
 taxidermist as skilled as he is energetic, and the result has been that the system of 
 natural mounting has been extended to the entire collection of birds, so that not 
 only British, but foreign species are represeuted with their familiar surroundings in 
 a state of nature. The Leicester Museum is the only one which has applied the 
 principle in its entirety with the utmost success and public appreciation. * * * 
 
 And further along in his article, and referring to the series of the 
 groups of British small birds and their nests in the South Kensington 
 Museum, Dr. Sharpe adds: 
 
 In this corridor are placed most of the smaller perching birds, some of the artistic 
 work being very satisfactory. The mounting of the specimens has been done by Mr. 
 Pickhardt, who, when he exercises his full powers, is probably without a rival as a 
 bird-stuffer, and the majority of the plants have been reproduced by Messrs. Min- 
 torn, of .Snho Square, but a. great deal of the arrangement of the cases is done in the 
 taxidermist's room of the museum by Mr. James "West, one of the staff. And here it 
 
 "Sharpe, R. Bowdler : Ornithology at South Kensington. The English Illustrated 
 Magazine, No. 51, December, 1887. London: Macmillan & Co., pp. 165-175. Illus- 
 trated. 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 377 
 
 must be explained that the groups of British birds exhibited are absolutely true to 
 nature, the birds being in every case the actual ones 'which built the nest in the 
 identical situation reproduced in the case. 
 
 So wonderfully interesting is Sharpe's article that the writer would 
 fain republish here every word of it, but we must hasten on to the 
 expression of opinions of others. 
 
 When commenting upon the " Common Faults in the Mounting of 
 Quadrupeds," our veteran taxidermist, Mr. William T. Hornaday, has 
 said: 
 
 The task of the taxidermist, if properly appreciated, is a grave and serious one. 
 It is not to depict the mere outline of an animal ou paper or canvas and represent 
 its covering of hair, feathers, or scales; nor is it to build up a figure of yielding clay 
 and cast it in plaster. It is to impart to a shapeless skin the exact size, the form, 
 the attitude, the look of life. It is to recreate the animal, or at least so much of it 
 as appeals to the eye; to give it all that nature gave it except the vital spark. It 
 should be an exact copy, as i f it were a cast of the animal as fashioned by nature's 
 cunning hand. It must stand the crucial test of being viewed from all points — from 
 the side, the front, from behind, above, and below. 
 
 More than all this, the animal must be prepared to stand the test of time. It must 
 not swerve from its poise; it must not shrink nor change its form ; it must retain its 
 smoothness and resist the ravages of destroying insects.* 
 
 Mr. Hornaday, it will be remembered, was at one time in charge of 
 the taxidermical department of the TJ. S. National Museum, and many 
 of his most successful accomplishments, grand groups of our larger 
 mammals, preserved in the most masterly style, are in the cases of that 
 institution — silent attests to the durability and thoroughness of his 
 work. A number of these will be noticed further on in the present 
 paper. 
 
 There was much in Mr. Hornaday's studio at the National Museum 
 that reminded me of the workshop of that giant among American 
 taxidermists of his time, the late John G. Bell, of New York. There 
 I met him over a quarter of a century ago. His place was some- 
 where down upon Broadway, and his room upon the second or third 
 story of the building. At the entrance door downstairs was a small 
 case containing a mounted scarlet ibis and a few other birds, to 
 invite attention to those in search of his rooms above. At that time, 
 about 1868, 1 was a student of one of Mr. Bell's best graduates, Mr. 
 James W. Jenkins, now of Madison, 111., and very well do I remember 
 my first introduction to that Broadway establishment. I had been 
 engaged by Prof. Albert S. Bickmore to accompany, as naturalist, 
 one of the Polar expeditions, then organizing, to make collections for 
 the American Museum of Natural History, and had been sent with 
 specimens of my bird-skins to Mr. Bell to have him pronounce upon 
 them and my work generally, with the view of having his opinion 
 on my fitness for the position. As I entered the room I observed 
 an old red fox chained to a bolt in the wall, but lying down with 
 
 ' Third Ann. Rep. of the Soc. Amer. Taxidermists, p. 67. 1882-'83. 
 
378 EEPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 his head between his forepaws aud eyes upturned in my direction. 
 On the floor in his immediate neighborhood were a number of beauti- 
 fully mounted birds on stands, and fearing lest the animal should 
 suddenly arise if I came farther into the apartment, and do some dam- 
 age, I started to pass round and give him as wide a berth as possible. 
 The room was small, and Mr. Bell was engaged with a couple of stu- 
 dents at a window opposite where I entered, but he turned in time to 
 see my detour around the fox, and did not spare me in his merriment 
 at my thinking the animal was alive. To some extent, however, he 
 mitigated my chagriu by saying he had deceived over a hundred vis- 
 itors with that fox during the five years it had lain there. I could not 
 help but admire his tall and well-knit frame, his piercing blue eyes, 
 and general bearing. His specimens too, which I examined, werejier- 
 fect works of art, and, as all know who have ever had a similar oppor- 
 tunity to study them, were the admiration and the envy of the taxi- 
 dermists of those days, now long gone by. 
 
 Of all the taxiderroical institutions, however, that this country has 
 developed none can in any way compare with the natural science estab- 
 lishment of Prof. H. A. Ward, of Eochester, 1ST. Y. Not only has Prof. 
 Ward powerfully influenced for good the growth of the art in America, 
 or we may truthfully say throughout the civilized world, but he has by 
 inspiring others with his enthusiasm and energy built up a school of 
 advanced taxidermists that are worthy emulators of his skill, and who 
 have with marked ability passed the torch in many directions. There 
 is not a museum in our land at all entitled to bear the name that is not 
 in some way, whether directly or indirectly, indebted to him for im- 
 provements of all kinds in its taxidermic methods, and the proper 
 modes of exhibiting materials illustrative of the kindred arts and 
 sciences. 
 
 Mr. F. A. Lucas, who has done so much to develop the exhibiting of 
 osteological subjectSj and models and specimens of both vertebrates 
 and invertebrates at the U. S. National Museum owes much of his suc- 
 cess to his early training under Prof. Ward, and the art is not only 
 under lasting obligations to him, but through his wise teaching it has 
 been firmly and permanently placed in that quarter upon a safe aud 
 lasting basis. That Mr. Lucas appreciates "The scope and needs of 
 taxidermy" in their truest sense no one can doubt who has ever read 
 his article of that title in the Third Annual Eeport of the Society of 
 American Taxidermists. 
 
 Mr. Frederic S. Webster is another of whose writings and produc- 
 tions the country has every reason to be proud, and the high standard 
 of work so constantly put forth by that artist has always had a most 
 beneficial effect upon the younger aspirants in the United States. 
 
 Attention of American and European students has also been drawn 
 from the old time museum models in taxidermy and directed to a closer 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 379 
 
 copying of nature through the far-reaching works of Dr. Elliott Ooues, 
 who has said, in his Key to North American Birds : 
 
 Faultless mounting [of birds] is an art really dim cult, acquired by few; the aver- 
 age work done in this line shows something of caricature, ludicrous or repulsive, as 
 the ease may be. To copy nature faithfully by taxidermy requires not only long 
 and close study, but an artistic sense; and this last is a rare gift. Unless you have 
 at least the germs of the faculty in your composition, your taxidermical success will 
 be incommensurate with the time and trouble you bestow. My own taxidermical 
 ■ art is of a low order, decidedly not above average. Although I have mounted a 
 great many birds that would compare very favorably with ordinary museum work, 
 few of them have entirely answered my ideaB. A live bird is to me sueh a beautiful 
 object that the slightest taxidermical flaw in the effort to represent it is painfully 
 offensive. Perhaps this makes me place the standard of excellence too high for 
 practical purposes (p. 40, 2d ed., 1884). 
 
 Powerful impulses of the best kind have often been instilled into the 
 art through the patronage and guidance of those who have at different 
 times in their careers been either directors of, or curators in, our larger 
 museums. I speak especially in this country of the Smithsonian Insti- 
 tution and the National Museum. 
 
 Through the wise and ever-operative influence of our great Nestor of 
 all the sciences zoological, Prof. Spencer F. Baird, he so directed the 
 management of those institutions when under his administration that 
 their workshops came to be the great drill ground for many of the most 
 deserving who possessed the evidences of success in skillfully preserv- 
 ing all manner of objects illustrative of the various classes of the animal 
 kingdom. 
 
 What has been the outcome of much of his wisdom we hope to por- 
 tray, however faintly, in the following pages. Most ably has Prof. 
 Baird's influence been fostered and furthered by the succeeding efforts 
 along similar lines of those who are his successors in tlj,e administration 
 of the Museum and who at the present time are doing so much to give 
 actual shape and form to what before was simply in outline and crude 
 beginnings- Where such influence tells the best is in th e directing of 
 the skilled efforts of the taxidermic artist in those cases where the lat- 
 ter, through lack of opportunity, fails to possess the requisite knowledge 
 of the forms and habits of many of the world's rarer animals. Indeed, 
 frequently some of the best group pieces of mounted mammals, birds, 
 and others, have resulted from the combined knowledge and skill of the 
 capable zoologist on the one hand and the trained taxidermist upon the 
 other. Not a few of such groups are to be found in the collections of 
 the Government museums. 
 
 Very often it will be seen, then, in thefuture, I think, that fine, realistic 
 groups of mounted animals will be produced that will be composites ; 
 in other words, will be the resultant of the combined labors of the 
 biologist, the taxidermist, the modeler, and the designer and artist. 
 Earely will all these prerequisites be found in one man, though occasion- 
 ally undoubtedly it will be so ; then the museum which can claim his 
 services will be very fortunate. 
 
380 REPORT OP NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 Among many others who have been more or less influential in insist- 
 ing upon the highest standard for the art, in each and all of its 
 branches, we must not forget the distinguished names of Joseph H. 
 Batty, the author of a number of works upon practical taxidermy; 
 O. J. Maynard, the well-known writer of the The Naturalist's Guide; 
 Prof. J. W. P. Jenks, who, through a long and honorable career, has 
 never ceased his efforts in not only doing much for taxidermy, but in 
 the introduction of study series of animals in the public schools in 
 New England and elsewhere; and a host of other worthy promoters. 
 
 At the National Museum, at Washington, in recent times, in addition 
 to the flue group pieces of Hornaday and of Lucas, there has been 
 some masterly work done in the taxidermic art by Mr. Joseph Palmer, 
 and his son, Mr. William Palmer; also by Mr. Nelson 11. Wood and 
 Mr. Henry Denslow, the nature of which I have already noticed in a 
 popular article published in The Great Divide, of Denver, Colo., for 
 December, 1892, and which will be referred to again in the present 
 connection. 
 
 From the opinions, then, of the European and American taxidermists 
 as 1 have thus far quoted them, it is evident that the general develop- 
 ment of the art shows at this time very marked improvement, and the 
 tendency among its votaries is to raise it to the highest possible stand- 
 ard of excellence. With such a movement the writer is in the most 
 hearty sympathy, and I am of the opinion that the day is not far dis- 
 tant when taxidermy will find its lawful place on the platform of the 
 most highly cultivated of the arts. As a matter of fact it has every 
 right in reason to stand side by side with painting and with sculpture, 
 and its students need have no fears in claiming such a station for it. 
 
 To be a scientific taxidermist requires, or should require, in the first 
 instance, a very thorough education, quite equal to that given by our 
 best colleges. He should have a complete training in biology, with 
 especial emphasis having been placed upon his studies in comparative 
 morphology, so as to be familiar, as far as possible, with the vertebrate 
 skeleton and topographical anatomy, to include more particularly the 
 study of the superficial muscles of vertebrates. He should have such 
 a conception of physics as to be able to decide upon the possible and 
 the impossible in animal postures. In a way, he should be a good ar- 
 tist, be enabled to use the photographic camera, and make intelligent 
 sketches of animals of all kinds and their natural haunts. He should 
 be fully abreast ot the times in all taxidermic technique per se, and 
 possess fine mechanical skill. 
 
 As full a knowledge as can be attained of the habits of animals from 
 personal observations should be added, as well as a constitutional de- 
 sire to become familiar through current literature of all advances made 
 from time to time in his art, and a healthy ambition to ever utilize them 
 and improve upon the same. 
 
 So far as human ability is concerned, were I at this moment called 
 
 t 
 
 ^ 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOE MUSEUMS. 381 
 
 upon to decide as to the relative merits of tlie talent required to paint 
 a life-size elephant, to sculpture one in stone, or to properly preserve one 
 in a natural position and color so it would safely resist the ravages of 
 time and all else that might injure it, I should not hesitate a moment 
 in rendering an opinion, for I should say it lay with the scientific tax- 
 idermic artist. Mind you, when I do thus decide I have had in my life- 
 time, with specimens of smaller animals, experience with all. At the 
 best, however, the difference is but of very small degree, and yet the 
 taxidermist, in a way, should be master of both the art of the painter 
 and the art of the sculptor, for frequently he has to use the brush with 
 great fidelity to nature, and the time is fast coming on when he must 
 be able to build up, in clay at least, the entire forms of the larger ani- 
 mals which he aims to preserve. 
 
 Next, it may be asked, Why a collegiate education 1 Simply because 
 I believe a man in any calling is a better man in every way for having 
 received the four years' training which a university gives him. And 
 surely neither the taxidermist, nor the artist, nor the sculptor offer any 
 exception to the rule. Moreover, everything that the skilled taxider- 
 mist would acquire in a college course would materially assist him in 
 his profession in his subsequent career. Whatever may have been 
 written, and whatever may have been said on the broad question of 
 the college man versus the self-made man, it has been my experience 
 that the kind of men that bring our country the most desirable recog- 
 nition from other nations are those who have received a liberal educa- 
 tion. A taxidermist should be a good ge.ieral biologist, and he should 
 pay especial attention to the habits of all animals in nature ; the geo- 
 graphical ranges of faunce; breeding habits; the peculiar habits in- 
 dulged in by various kinds of animals ; their natural resorts during times 
 of feeding, amusement, or conducting their young. Plants of all kinds 
 should with scrupulous care be studied from the i axidermist's stand- 
 point, as well as the localities where they grow, nature of surfaces of 
 the ground, and all else presented on the part of field, ocean, stream, 
 and forest. Nothing should escape his constant study of such matters, 
 and, above all else, he should cultivate the faculty of patience. An 
 impatient man, it may be safely said, can never attain to the highest 
 position the art has in its power of giving him. 
 
 In comparative morphology, as I have said, he should devote a great 
 deal of time to the skeleton and to topographical anatomy. The study 
 of the skeleton is of the very highest importance, as without a knowl- 
 edge of it there is no hope at all of a man being a perfect taxidermist 
 in all its varied departments. Normal movements of the articulations 
 and the ligaments that control them should receive most careful consid- 
 eration, and no opportunity lost to study such matters scientifically 
 upon all kinds of animal cadavers. Special drawings made by the 
 taxidermist should record special points observed and worked out — the 
 possibilities in normal movements and postures as exhibited by the 
 
382 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 osseous system. In its entirety, however, this can not be fully appre- 
 ciated without a full knowledge of the muscular system, for there are 
 possible movements that the skeleton, when cleaned and dried, is capa- 
 ble of making, which, in life, become impossible from the operation of 
 muscles and tendons. So myology must be systematically studied 
 pari passu with the subject of skeletology, and with the aim constantly 
 in view of acquiring a clear insight into the normal postures of animals. 
 
 This leads to the consideration of the question of correct form, and 
 to acquire that requires prolonged research and study upon the entire 
 subject of topographical anatomy. Muscles extended; muscles con- 
 tracted; muscles at rest; contours formed by the normal deposit of adi- 
 pose tissue; contours formed by parts of the skeleton that are merely 
 subcutaneous ; contours formed by the presence of glands of all kinds, 
 of sesamoidal bones, cartilages, and every other structure that may in 
 any way affect the normal contour of an animal. To this must be added 
 the careful study of all external characters proper, as the hair and 
 analogous parts, throughout the animal kingdom — the eyes and their 
 surroundings, the nasal structures, -the mouth of all vertebrates and 
 invertebrates. Indeed, there is not a point properly falling within the 
 range of topographical anatomy in its very widest sense that should be 
 beneath the special notice of the taxidermist. 
 
 Colors of parts should also receive marked attention; and the taxi- 
 dermist should keep a notebook devoted to that one branch alone. 
 Never should an opportunity be lost to record by actual painted 
 sketches the colors of every external anatomical character presented 
 on the part of any animal whatsoever. Zoology itself would be far freer 
 from gross errors of the color descriptions of animals were naturalists, 
 as a rule, more careful in such matters. This is marked by the casein 
 ichthyology and in the naked skin-tracks of mammals and birds. We, 
 then, are naturally led to the question of drawing and painting; and no 
 one will doubt the necessity of a taxidermist being more or less pro- 
 ficient in all these branches. But none of them will be of any service 
 to him unless the power be supplemented by the more important fac- 
 ulty of being a correct observer, and to be a correct observer is to see 
 and appreciate things as they really exist. Taxidermists should have 
 a knowledge of not only m aking correct sketches of all kinds of animals 
 and their haunts and of plants and coloring them correctly, but they 
 should be enabled to use such instruments as are demanded in making 
 reduced drawings correctly from large subjects. Coloring in oil is also 
 of great value in restoring the tints in some cases on the skins of pre- 
 served animals, and the student in this art should constantly aim to 
 cultivate his sense of colo.r appreciation and of the matching of all the 
 various shades. 
 
 More or less pertinent to this question, Capt. Thomas Brown has 
 said : * 
 
 •Taxidermist's Manual, pp. 3, 4. 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 383 
 
 A knowledge of drawing and modeling are also indispensable qualifications, to 
 enable tbe stuffer to place his subject in a position both natural and striking. It is 
 the too-frequent practice for the stuffer to set about preserving the animal without 
 having determined in what attitude he is to place it, so that it will appear to most 
 advantage and bein character with the ordinary habits of the creature. This he leaves 
 to the last efforts of finishing his work, and, consequently, its proportions and 
 character are likely to be devoid of all appearance of animation. 
 
 The first thing, therefore to be attended to in all great national natural history 
 establishments is to choose young persons who are yet in their boyhood to be in- 
 structed in this art most important to science. Their studies should be commenced 
 by deep attention to drawing, modeling, anatomy, chemistry, while they at the 
 same time proceed with the practical part of their art. Every opportunity of ex- 
 amining the habits and actions of the living subject should be embraced and its atti- 
 tudes and general aspect carefully noted. Without strict attention to these points, 
 so manifestly obvious, the art of preserving animals never will attain that degree of 
 perfection which its importance demands. On the other hand, if this art is pursued 
 in the manner here recommended, artists may be produced who will fulfill the ob- 
 jects of their profession with honor to themselves and advantage to their country. 
 Would any person expect to arrive at eminence as a sculptor if he were unacquainted 
 with the established preliminaries of his art, namely, drawing and anatomy? The 
 thing is so self-evident, that I am only surprised it has not long ago been acted upon. 
 Upwards of twelve years have elapsed since I pointed out these facts to the profes- 
 sor of natural history in the University of Edinburgh, but things continue as they 
 were before that time. 
 
 Since Capt. Brown wrote these words, and very true ones they are, 
 another art and the accessories to it have enormously developed. I 
 refer to the art of photography. Now, if there be one thing more use- 
 ful to the scientific taxidermic artist than another it is a full practical 
 knowledge of the use of the photographic camera and all that directly 
 pertains thereto. Its application is most varied, and is greatly en- 
 hanced by the use of the time and instantaneous shutters. By the use 
 of the camera the taxidermist can secure subjects that the unaided eye 
 and pencil can never give him, and these are all kinds of animals in rapid 
 motion, and they may be. obtained, after a due amount of practice, by 
 the use of the photographic camera. One has but to study the superb 
 series of photographs obtained through .the indefatigable Eadwuard 
 Muy bridge to appreciate my meaning here. No taxidermist who has 
 any regard for an attainment of excellence in his calling should neglect 
 to make good photographs of all the living animals that he can, and that 
 upon every possible opportunity. This should not be confined to wild 
 animals alone, but to all the domestic ones in their most common atti- 
 tudes. 
 
 Horses, cows, dogs, cats, pigs, and all the barnyard fowls should by 
 no means be beneath his notice. They should also be taken from many 
 points of view, I might say from every possible point of view, and then 
 be nearer what the taxidermist really needs in his work. He should 
 carefully keep a series of large-sized and suitable scrapbooks wherein 
 all his photographs should be carefully inserted, together with his 
 sketches, and everything of the kind, with their full histories and notes, 
 
384 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 etc., recorded upon opposite pages. Photographs should be made also 
 of plants of all kinds directly in the Pj^.^^J^ta- and in 
 also the resorts of animals of every description; ^^f^ ™'™ 
 short, every possible natural subject and creature and locality that the 
 taxidermist may be called upon to reproduce in his workshop. He 
 should also make photographs of dissections, the skeletons of animals, 
 models, and designs, and of dead animals. Ever should it be pronu- 
 nently before his mind that one of the greatest of all taxidermical de- 
 siderata is the obtaining of good models of all kinds and descriptions, 
 and models true to nature in every sense of the word. Frequently 
 artists who are correct observers and portrayers of animals make fine 
 illustrations of them, either in the form of colored or un colored .prints, 
 and these the taxidermist should secure for his "notebook" when- 
 ever he possibly can. 
 
 On this point Mr. Staebner has very truly remarked:* 
 
 It would seem almost superfluous to insist ou the value, nay the absolute neces- 
 sity of good illustrations as aids to the taxidermists, were it not that the impor- 
 tance of the subject appears to he hardly yet fully appreciated "by many of the yery 
 ones to he most benefited. 
 
 There was a time, now happily past, as the work exhibited by this association 
 abundantly proves, when individuals who mounted birds and animals (as their cards 
 set forth) were content to ram a hide full of packing material, sew it up, and call 
 the effigy by this or that name, according as this or that animal was desired. The 
 degree of monstrosity, if it may be so termed, thus produced, was in inverse ratio 
 to the care of the workman for his art and his knowledge (often scant enough) of 
 the external appearance of the animal he was attempting to reproduce. These mon- 
 strosities of taxidermy are still to be seen in many of our public museums, where, let 
 us hope, they at least serve the purpose of teaching the younger generation, how not 
 
 to do it. 
 
 As in all other departments of human activity, so in this is the skilled workman 
 plainly superseding the unskilled, and the class of work thus becoming more and 
 more a source of pride and satisfaction. The man with a love for his art, necessa- 
 rily something of a naturalist and witn a naturalist's care, anxious about the correct- 
 ness of all the details of his work, must utilize all the aids at his command, and of 
 these aids accurate drawings and paintings occupy the chief place. These are the 
 taxidermist's works of reference to which ho goes for information precisely as an- 
 other goes to his encyclopedia, since the ability is given to no man to carry all the 
 minute points of an animal's external appearance in his mind. That the representa- 
 tions for this purpose should be what are strictly understood as works of art is obvi- 
 ously unnecessary. 
 
 The objects to be secured, however, and_ which they should possess to meet the 
 requirements of the case are: (1) accuracy of outline; (2) truthfulness of attitude, 
 and (3) in order of importance, correctness of coloring, and in so far as they conforn 
 to these things are they already, by just so much, works of art. "What is technical!} 
 known as artistic effect should here be a secondary consideration. Having securee 
 the first three essential points, attention may be given to the last. 
 
 In the case of rare animals such representations as is well known are the sole reli 
 ance of the taxidermist. That they have a value even in the case of more familia 
 animals may be instanced by the case of the walrus. The pictures of this mamma 
 
 * Staebner, F. W. : Note on the value of animal illustrations to taxidermists. Thin 
 Ann. Rep. Society of American Taxidermists, 1882-'83, pp. 72-74. 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOB MUSEUMS. 385 
 
 in all the professed works on zoology and natural history, oven in so good and gen- 
 erally correct a work as Brehm, are glaringly false, and it is only within the last 
 few years that anything approaching truthful representations— figures drawn from 
 observation instead of copies of previous drawings originally evolved from the artist's 
 " inner consciousness"— have been given us, and so it happens that of mounted speci- 
 mens of the walrus showing the true appearance of the animal almost the only ones 
 at the present time are the one at Cambridge, and that other at the United States 
 National Museum mounted by Mr. Hornaday.* 
 
 How often has a painstaking taxidermist wished for a means of refreshing his rec- 
 ollection on some little matter of detail concerning a creature's anatomy, and been 
 obliged to finally guess at it because of the lack of adequate illustrations. Let me 
 not be understood as descrying the assistance afforded by zoological gardens. It is 
 just here that they come into play, and as it is better for the taxidermist to observe 
 at first hand, so these are even better than drawings for reference; but the fact is 
 they are far from being readily accessible at best in this country, and in the few 
 instances in which'this objection does not apply the variety of specimens which 
 they contain is too limited, so that we are still compelled to supplement them by a 
 more ready source of information, and thus we fall back upon pictorial representa- 
 tions as on the whole most convenient. As above implied, however, these represen- 
 tations must be taken from life by skillful hands, and must give us the animals as 
 they look, and not as the artist thinks they ought to look. 
 
 But in order that we may have such we must encourage those who work in this 
 line — the Landseers, the Baryes, the Wolfs, the Spechts, etc., whom, under a change 
 of name, we have in this country in the Beards, the Kemeyses, etc. We must make 
 it profitable for them to undertake the work we so much need, and if we have the 
 good of taxidermy at heart, if we have faith in its capabilities as an art we will do 
 this, for in so doing we are helping it and ourselves as well as them. 
 
 In The Auk'for April, 1891, the present writer published a letter en- 
 titled " Camera notes for ornithologists," which, not being of very 
 great length and quite in line with the views just quoted above, will, 
 I think, bear repeating here, and enlarging upon a little further along. 
 I said : 
 
 At the last congress of the American Ornithologists' Union there were exhibited 
 many photographs of all sorts of ornithological subjects, and the majority of them 
 were examined by the writer with great care. 
 
 For one, I was disappointed in the results arrived at by the authors of the most 
 of them, as there appeared to be such a totalabsence of any practical result attained. 
 Among the best that I saw were some taken by Dr. Edgar A. Mearns, but even those, 
 the work of a most painstaking naturalist, did not come up to what the camera is 
 capable of performing for practical ornithology. Little or nothing is to be gained 
 in this latter direction by photographing bunches of game or badly mounted speci- 
 mens and similar subjects. Any tyro can accomplish as much as that, and orni- 
 thology not be called upon to thank him for it. 
 
 In the present communication it is the writer's object to relate some personal 
 experiences which may be of assistance to those interested in this line of work. 
 
 Now, in the first place, as to some of the objects to be attained: There are a num- 
 ber of these. We may desire, for example, a sharp, clear photograph, which either 
 maybe natural size or may present the subject reduced, for the use of the lithog- 
 rapher, in order to place in the latter's hands an accurate figure to be copied on to 
 stone, and the plates printed therefrom to be used for illustrative purposes. The 
 
 * In this connection see the various figures of the walrus illustrating the present 
 report, Plates lxxxv, lxxxvi. 
 
 H. Mis. 114, pt. 2 25 
 
386 KEPOKT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 subject may be a bird, its young, or its nest, or a dissection of a bird, or its skele- 
 ton, or its eggs, and so on indefinitely. Owls present to many artists difficult sub- 
 iects to draw satisfactorily, but there is no reason why we should not, by the aid of 
 the camera and a 5-by-8 plate, for a small sum, and in very short order, have ready 
 for the lithographer a life-size figure, and a perfectly accurate one, of such a species 
 as Nyctala acadica, or upon a similar plate a handsomely reduced figure of Bubo vir- 
 ginianus. Again, hy varying our material, colored figures are easily obtained for 
 like purposes. Photographs of this character may also be used to make wood cuts 
 from, or they may be reproduced by some of the various styles of "process work." 
 Yet another object: We may desire to produce by the aid of * camera an accurate 
 figure of any of the above-mentioned subjects from which an electrotype can be 
 directly made. This also is now easy of accomplishment, and such illustrations 
 meet a vast variety of needs in descriptive ornithology. These, then, are some of 
 the principal objects to be attained, viz, clear, accurate figures, either life size or 
 reduced to any desired size, and either plain or colored, which (by the use of differ- 
 ent materials) can he used at once by either the lithographer, the wood engraver, 
 the "process worker,'' or the electrotyper. 
 
 Your material must be the best in all particulars. I use a large, first-class, quick- 
 working lens; a Blair's camera for the 5 by*8 plate; the iron and oxalate developer, 
 using the chemically pure material (filtered) ; bichloride of mercury and ammonia 
 for intensifying, etc. 
 
 Our method of procedure can best be illustrated by a few examples. Say we wish 
 to reproduce, life size, a hawk's egg. Suspend on the wall opposite and under the 
 strong sunlight, a smooth, half-inch pine board; cover this with white blotting 
 paper, held on with some half dozen artists' thumb tacks. Of course your egg is to 
 be blown and not show the opening. Next you decide whether or no you desire it 
 to throw a shadow; if you do, you simply fasten it to the blotting paper with a 
 small piece of soft wax, exposing to the camera the side you wish represented; if you 
 do not, you insert a piece of wire a few inches long into the board and perpendicular 
 to it, and fasten the egg to the end of it with a soft piece of wax. Place a bucket 
 of water on the floor under the egg, in case the specimen should accidentally drop 
 off. Focus the egg natural size and sharp on the ground glass of your camera; this 
 maybe ascertained by a pair of calipers, comparing the actual length of the egg 
 with its image upon the ground glass. Insert your smallest diaphragm and expose, 
 the time of exposure being governed by your former experiences. I prefer Seed's 
 dry plates. They give excellent results. After developing, unless you get a very 
 strong negative it is always best to intensify your plate, and this is done by the 
 usual mercury and ammonia process. Now, if you wish an un colored figure to be 
 lithographed, or woodcut, or for some of the special processes, you must print on the 
 best ready sensitized albumen paper, toning the print handsomely afterwards. On 
 the other hand, if you desire a colored figure, you must print on plain, i. e., uon- 
 albumenized, sensitized paper, and afterwards color the print by hand with New- 
 ton's water-colors from the specimen. Pure white eggs stand out well when pho- 
 tographed against black velvet or crape ; this also applies to some skulls and other 
 osteological specimens, when they are cleaned to a state of glistening whiteness. 
 
 Such a procedure defines the outlines well for the engraver. 
 
 When we come to the photographing of birds, living birds, for the purpose of 
 obtaining the proper kind of figures that can be used for the various methods of 
 reproduction now in vogue, we enter upon a field where one can display no end of 
 patience, tact, and ingenuity. It will be a long day before the writer will forget 
 his experience in obtaining ,i photograph of a live screech owl. Three times I 
 walked half a mile from the house where I could get a sky background for him on 
 the summit of a hill, where an old natural stump was also to be found to serve as a 
 perch for him. Just as good a result can be obtained by photographing your bird 
 in your studio with a sheet for a background, and then you may choose any kind of 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 387 
 
 perch you desire, from a museum T to the limb of a rugged old pine with the cones 
 anil spines on. 
 
 Right here, however, I desire to mention a process, no doubt already known to 
 many, for which there is no end of use. Say you have obtained a fine, intensified 
 negative, the subject being a bird caught in the act of some habit peculiar to it. You 
 wish to obtain a good, strong, accurate outline figure of it, from which an electro- 
 type can at once be made, to serve as an illustration for some article upon which you 
 may be engaged. Make a print from the plate upon plain, nonalbuminized, sensi- 
 tized paper. Remove the print to the dark-room and wash out the silver from it 
 thoroughly. You may tone, but it is not absolutely necessary unless there is very 
 considerable detail in your figure. Dry the print in the dark, and keep in a 
 perfectly dark place until evening. When evening comes complete your work 
 under a good lamp where the direct rays do not fall upon your print. Pin this lat- 
 ter out on a small drawing-board with artists' thumb tacks, and then with a map- 
 ping-pen (No. 291, Gillott's) and Higgins' American drawing ink carefully ink over 
 by lines and otherwise the outlines of your figure. In doing this you will have the 
 opportunity of making it appear just as you desire your outline ink sketch to appear 
 when it comes to be finally printed from the electrotype. Having carefully com- 
 pleted your work, immerse the print flat in a tray containing a saturated solution of 
 bichloride of mercury. This in a moment takes out all of the print except the ink 
 outline you have traced, and this latter it leaves upon a pure white sheet of paper. 
 Next dry the print thoroughly and mount upon a suitable card. At a small cost, a 
 good electrotype can be made from this figure. Photographing against a sheet, of 
 course, takes out a great deal that you do not want in your reproduced figure, but 
 by the process just described you need not have a single point or line more than you 
 want. It works admirably where we wish to reduce the subject to any required 
 size; in osteological subjects and in dissections; in deformities of birds ; and indeed 
 in dozens of other cases. To naturalists in general I would say that the process just 
 described is absolutely invaluable ; by its means ready and accurate sketches are 
 made of characters of country; of all sorts of ethnological subjects, as pottery and 
 native arts, sometimes so difficult to draw ; of complicated skeletons ; of living ani- 
 mals of all kinds, and thousands of other subjects too numerous for enumeration. 
 
 With some live birds the following plan will be found to work well : Suspend a 
 shelf, at the proper height, from the wall of your studio and in the proper light. 
 This shelf, as usual, is to be entirely covered with white blotting paper, and upon 
 its horizontal part is to be firmly fixed the limb, trunk, or rock, or turf upon which 
 you desire your specimen to appear. Set up your camera and focus this perch 
 sharply on your ground-glass ; next put in your smallest diaphragm and attach your 
 " pneumatic shutter " ready for instant use. Gently take your living bird in your 
 hand, smooth its feathers, caress it for a moment or two, then quietly place its head 
 under its wing, and by beginning slowly soon rapidly whirl your specimen in a cir- 
 cle. This, as it were, "put it asleep," but it will seize the perch with its feet, or rest 
 quietly on rock or turf. Place it as near as possible in the position you desire, and 
 stand ready for a semi-instantaneou s pi cture. Be perfectly quiet. In a few moments 
 your bird gradually comes to, rights himself, preens up a little, looks around, steadies 
 himself into a natural attitude, finally looks himself, and then more or less animated. 
 This is your chance, puff the snap on him ! 
 
 Upon reading this over I find few, if any, alterations to make, and 
 since it was written I have succeeded in obtaining not a few good fig- 
 ures according to its directions, some of which are republished as illus 
 trations in the present paper and will be described a little later. 
 There is one thing, however, that needs notice, and in order to get a 
 good electrotype or stereotype, it is not necessary to proceed as above 
 
388 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 given, for we can simply make a blueprint; that, as we know can be 
 done in a few moments, and is a finished picture, .. e., does not require 
 toning and fixing. Then trace what you desire to appear on your blue 
 print as directed, and bleach out with a saturated solution of bicarbo 
 nate of potash. This gives you a black and white drawing of any finish, 
 according to the labor you may desire to put upon it, and is the working 
 drawing now so commonly used for newspaper cuts; but when printed 
 upon the best paper, for the resulting electrotype or stereotype fur 
 nishes an excellent drawing for a variety of purposes, and a very useful 
 one for the working naturalist and practical taxidermist. 
 
 Blotting paper in large sheets makes a far better background than 
 a sheet, and you may use it pure white, or blue, or gray, according to 
 the effect you desire to produce. Tour subject should be well in front 
 of the background, and, if possible, so far in front as to avoid a shadow 
 being thrown upon it. . Pictures thus taken out of doors, on clear, bright 
 days, are generally excellent. 
 
 Returning now to the requirements of the skilled taxidermist, I have 
 said, and Capt. Brown supports me in it, he should have such a knowl 
 edge of physics and chemistry as will assist him in the case of the first 
 in deciding upon the possible and impossible in the matter of the atti- 
 tudes of animals, and to some extent in the surroundings, as m the 
 rock work, etc., now extensively used in reproducing large groups. 
 With respect to chemistry he should be so much master of its general 
 principles as to be enabled to practically apply it to the action ana 
 composition of preservatives for the preservation of every description 
 of animal tissue. Not only that, but such a knowledge will be usefnl 
 to him in experimenting with the preservation of many kinds of plant 
 growths and kindred structures. For instance, I have recently been 
 shown specimens of the leaves of some varieties of trees that had been 
 gathered in nature and so perfectly restored that there was no very 
 great depreciation in them, either of form or color, and the effect when 
 properly done is most excellent. 
 
 Fruits are now frequently reproduced by the methods of the plastic 
 cast, and are so perfect as to absolutely deceive the most critical of 
 observers. The persimmons in the Raccoon Group in the National 
 Museum were manufactured in that way, and it is by no means an easy 
 task, aided by the eye alone, to distinguish them from the originals. 
 
 This brings us to the question of the various modes of modeling, and 
 here is one of the branches of the taxiderinic art, upon which too great 
 an amount of skill and ingenuity can not well be expended. Here all 
 the acquirements of the art student in taxidermy can be applied and 
 nothing lost by the labor. It involves the application of all his knowl- 
 edge of anatomy, his technique, his taste, and indeed, nearly everything 
 which it has been recommended above for him to prepare himself in. 
 He should be able to make casts of both vertebrates and invertebrates 
 in plasterof Paris; he should be familiar with the various methods now 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 PLATE XV. 
 
 If 
 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt 
 
 PLATE XVI. 
 
 Common Squid (.Sepia officinalis, o" )• 
 From a gelatine cast; reduced. 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt. 
 
 PLATE XVII. 
 
 HlSTIOTEUTHIS BONELLIANA. 
 
 From a gelatine cast; reduced. 
 
'■ Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate XVIII. 
 
 Fig. 1. Polynue hucohyba. Fig 2. Gastrolepidia clavigera. 
 
 Annelids. 
 
 From gelatine oasts; somewhat enlarged. 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate XIX. 
 
 A Marine Worm (Bonellia viridis). 
 From a gelatine cast; greatly enlarged. 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 389 
 
 so generally in use, of the reproduction of many of the smaller animals 
 in the different kinds of plastic material ; he should be an adept in the 
 use of clays, wax, wood, and other materials for the restoration of 
 parts. In short, now that taxidermy is a rapidly progressing art, the 
 advanced students and representatives of it, require, I think, no word 
 from me here to stimulate them to keep abreast of the many improve- 
 ments taking place in it. Among other things it should be the aim of 
 taxidermists to establish in this country at least several good soci- 
 eties, where from time to time they could meet and exhibit the most 
 recent successes in their art. Where papers could be read, and the 
 work of individuals generally compared. Organization, in other words, 
 I must believe, would at the present stage of the art's development, be 
 a benefit. 
 
 The writer of this paper has ever been a strong advocate of the 
 establishment of large, thoroughly equipped Government institutions 
 of learning or universities, and of the nation's duty to educate in the 
 best possible manner her aspirants in the dirierent departments of 
 science and art. What a national safeguard it would be in such a 
 profession, for example, as medicine; what a source of stimulation to 
 such an art as taxidermy ? I weigh my words well, when I say that if 
 such an institution could annually graduate in this country 50 thor- 
 oughly educated and skilled taxidermists, it would in time, far more 
 heavily redound to our national credit than much else I could name 
 which our Government indulges in. Apply it to all the arts and 
 -. sciences, and we would command the respect of every nation of the 
 globe, and, better than this, it would be that kind of respect which 
 skill, knowledge, and culture always brings, and which brilliant dis- 
 play of warships, guns and warism can never inspire. 
 
 Let us pass next to the consideration of the question of some of the 
 results now attained to by modern taxidermists m the preserving of 
 animals for museum exhibition. Here we meet with at the very out- 
 start, a phase of the art in which the workers at the U. S. National 
 Museum have kept themselves fully abreast with the advances made 
 [n it. Recently some beautiful work has been turned out here, espe- 
 cially in the line of single specimens, as well as groups, of marine in- 
 vertebrates for the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago. 
 
 Take, for example, such an elegant reproduction of an Octopus as is 
 shown in Plate xv ( 0. vulgaris). This triumph in the matter of an exact 
 nodel, perfectly preserved, of a large soft invertebrate animal is.ac- 
 ;omplished through the use of the plaster mold, and gelatine cast, 
 low so successfully brought to such perfection. Under the careful 
 supervision of Mr. F. A. Lucas, whom I must thank here for the selec- 
 tion of the six specimens illustrating this department, the proper speci- 
 nens are first picked out from the collection or are chosen from plates, 
 md pass next in order to the most skilled modellers, casters, and color- 
 srs. Of the series I here present, Mr. A. H. Baldwin has made the 
 
390 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 models after the drawings of various artists which will be hereinaft 
 mentioned. After a model has been made, a mold is next taken, ai 
 from it a gelatine cast is secured which later is Anally trimmed to lii 
 and faithfully colored to nature. Mr. J. W. Scollick is responsible f 
 the delicate manipulation required in securing accurate molds ai 
 castings from the models, and then they once more pass to Mr. Bal 
 win's hands to be colored. After this operation and when perfectly di 
 they may either be tastefully mounted upon properly tinted pieces 
 small boards of a suitable kind of wood, dressed down to a right thic 
 ness, or they may play their part in a group, wherein all the natur 
 surroundings of such creatures are reproduced, save the element 
 which they exist. This specimen of Octopus vulgaris was based on fi 
 figure given by Verany, as was also the models of Sepia officinal 
 shown in Plate xvi and in one of Mistioteuthis bonelliana, shown 
 Plate xvn, and so may be relied upon as being more or less true 
 nature. 
 
 Unless one has seen one of these finished gelatine casts of such a 
 animal as an Octopus, it is hard to realize what a perfect represei 
 tation it gives us of the living animal ; and, the cast being perfectl 
 pliable, much as is the best of good rubber, it still further enlianct 
 the resemblance to the original. But to produce this, requires ski 
 and art of a very high order at nearly every step of the process. ] 
 the first place, if we are to model from a drawing, that drawing mu 
 be known to be accurate; if we model from a specimen, we must 1 
 sure about placing it in a posture that the animal is known to habit 
 ally assume. Great skill is next required in making a perfect mod 
 or copy of the design or specimen, and then it goes without sayii 
 that it isonly through long experience and carethatthenecessarymoli 
 and casts are obtained. Much depends at last upon the ability of tl 
 artist to faithfully color the result of all the previous efforts; that i 
 the trimmed cast. Hornaday has said in his work on Taxidermy: 
 
 For irregular objects, the working of a gelatine mold is perfection itself, 
 yields gracefully in coming out of the undercuts and around corners, takes eve 
 detail perfectly, and in the jacket its shape is always the same. A careful operal 
 can make from twenty to fifty copies of a cast in a single mold before its loss 
 sharpness necessitates its abandonment (p. 267). 
 
 Hornaday's brief chapter on the making of molds and casts in t 
 volume just quoted is one of the most useful and valuable in the boo 
 
 In passing, I am tempted to say here that the Cuttlefishes to whi 
 this Octopus belongs are the most highly organized members of thecla 
 of animals constituting the Cephalopoda. As the MalaMa,t\\cj we 
 fully recognized by Aristotle over three hundred years before Christ. ' 
 their distribution, Nicholson has said that— 
 
 They are all marine, active, rapacious, and carnivorous in their habits, swimmi 
 vigorously by mean., of the jets of water emitted from the funnel, or in an opposite 
 rection by means of fins, and creeping about the sea bottom by means of the preheni 
 arms. Some forms (such as the Octopodidw and Sepia ) are essentially littoral aninii 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 391 
 
 frequenting shallow seas, living in the vicinity of the land, and specially affecting 
 rocky bottoms. Others (such as Tremoclopus, Sepiola, Argonauta, Spirilla, Arehiteu- 
 this, OnychoUuthis, etc.) are pelagic animals, living in the open ocean, often fai 
 from land, and swimming at or near the surface. Though more varied as regards 
 their specific and generic types in the warmer seas of the globe, cuttlefishes ar< 
 found in almost all seas, and are sometimes . extremely numerous individually ever 
 in the colder oceans. It seems also certain that our present knowledge as to th< 
 pelagic forms is only very imperfect. As to their dimensions, none are extremelj 
 minute, and some attain truly gigantic dimensions. Not to speak of the fahuloui 
 accounts of colossal cuttlefishes given by many of the older writers, such as Pon- 
 toppidan and Olaus Magnus, we are now acquainted through the observations anc 
 descriptions of scientific witnesses, such as Banks and Solander, Quoy, and Gaim 
 ard, Steenstrup, Verrill, etc., with various huge cuttlefishes, inhabiting both the 
 Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Some of these, though only known by imperfect spec 
 imens, certainly attain a length of 15 feet or Upwards to the body and head, anc 
 from 30 to 40 feet or upwards in the long tentacles. All these giant cuttletishei 
 appear to belong to the suborder of the Decapoda. * 
 
 These gelatine casts are not only accurate and beautiful objects tc 
 be placed in the cases of any museum, but they, by being kept undei 
 the protection of glass doors, will last for almost an indefinite lengtl 
 of time, unaltered in color or form. The range of the applicability o 
 the gelatine cast is well-nigh infinite. I have seen fish, frogs, ser 
 pents, lizards, and similar animals thus reproduced, and so perfectlj 
 that their faithful portrayal of the original subjects was truly marvelous 
 As to fruit of all kinds, it can be imitated so closely that sometimes 
 by the aid of the eye alone, one can not correctly decide between th< 
 original and the copy thus made. 
 
 For the presentation of form, color, and general character, sucl 
 reproductions of animals as the common Squid, shown in Plate xvi, anc 
 the Histioteuthis, shown in Fig. 4, leaves but little to be desired alonj 
 such lines. No one can for a moment doubt but what a great deal is t< 
 be hoped for from this department of animal preservation, and the en 
 couragement of it is to be most highly recommended. 
 
 Other fine successes in this direction are shown in Plate xvm, Fig. 1 
 Plate xvin, Fig. 2, and Plate xix. Plate xvm, Fig. 1, of a specimen o: 
 Potynoe leucohyba (somewhat enlarged), and likewise the Gastrolepidii 
 clavigera, shown in Plate xvm, Fig. 2 (somewhat enlarged), are fron 
 Schmarda, both being very instructive representations of the originals 
 As is known, these low forms belong to the Annelida, each being generj 
 in the order Polychceta of that group. 
 
 Another beautiful reproduction of an interesting annelid is shown ii 
 Plate xix. This is also from a photograph of the gelatine cast in th< 
 collections of the U. IS. National Museum and represents a specimen o 
 Bonellia viridis of the Mediterranean Sea. It is greatly enlarged, anc 
 the model based upon the drawing given us of this form by Lacaze 
 Duthiers, who has rendered an account of this marine worm in a papei 
 
 'Nicholson, H.A. Art. "Cuttlefish.' Encyl. Brit. 9th ed. vol. vi.,pp.739, 740. 
 
392 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 entitled "Recherches sur La Bonella (Bonellia viridis)." (Ann. Scien. 
 Nat., torn. X, Paris, 1858, pp. 49-110, Pis. 1-4.) 
 
 Such annelida as Bonellia represents belong to the order Gephyrea, 
 and, according to W. C. Mcintosh, " seem to approach the Echino- 
 derms through the Holothuroidea." They are all marine types, being 
 very widely distributed throughout nature, specially in muddy regions, 
 some being frequently found in univalve shells. 
 
 By such representations as these, and by the judicious use of ex- 
 planatory tables, surely he museum of the future has a fine field to 
 look forward to, for such an art as this is capable of classifying in cases, 
 according to natural taxonomical schemes, whole groups of animals, 
 that heretofore have been studies only from the specimens and from 
 plates and drawings. It also admits of similar casts, duly colored, of 
 the anatomical structure of these little popularly known types, and, as 
 I have already said above, of placing many of them in their cases sur- 
 rounded by reproductions of the objects of their several environments 
 in nature. 
 
 Passing next to the art of taxidermy as applied to crustaceans we 
 are confronted with an entirely different problem than the one of which 
 we have just been speaking. And, as the writer has had no personal 
 experience of the kind, it is with no little pleasure that I find a brief 
 but able article on this subject by my friend Mr. F. A. Lucas, and from 
 it I here quote such parts as are in keeping with the present paper, by 
 which I mean that the outstanding difficulties will be indicated while 
 the technique of the art will be omitted. 
 Lucas has said : 
 
 Mounting of crabs, lobsters, and other crustaceans is somewhat of a thankless task 
 requiring an outlay of considerable time and trouble to arrive at results at all satis 
 factory. At first sight it would seem an easy matter to mount an animal whose fow 
 is determined beforehand, but a little trial develops the fact that, like bringing m 
 children, it is much easier in theory than in practice. As crustaceans dry they be 
 come very brittle, and the small legs and delicate feelers break only too readily 
 Worse than all, the beautiful colors with which these creatures are adorned whil 
 living fade rapidly, and the only way in which they can be renewed is by a des 
 trons use of paint. Therefore the great requisites for mounting crustaceans are 
 careful touch, a good eye for colors, and some knowledge of the proper methods u 
 applying them. The preparation of crustaceans is a little peculiar, inasmuch as, ii 
 stead of the skin being removed from the body, the body is removed piecemeal froi 
 the skin. * * * 
 
 * * Crustaceans may be mounted either on plain pedestals or on artificii 
 rock work, according to the purpose they are to serve, and in any case they should I 
 kept out of the dust as far as possible, since, owing to their fragile nature, they ai 
 very difficult to clean.* 
 
 * On the Mounting of Crustaceans. Third Annual Report of the Society of Arnei 
 can Taxidermists, pp. 74-77, 1882-'83. As it is a fact quite as well known to evei 
 one interested in the matter as it is unfortunate, that The Society of American Tax 
 dermists no longer has any existence, I will here make u bibliographical note ' 
 the two former reports of that society for the benefit of those who may desire toco: 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOE MUSEUMS. 393 
 
 In time we must believe that the plastic method as described above for 
 invertebrates will come to be generally used for crustaceans as well. 
 There is no reason that I can at present see that it should not, and every 
 reason that it should. No specimens of the group preserved in that 
 way have come to my attention in the collections of the National 
 Museum or elsewhere, and so I have no plates of the same to offer here. 
 Those prepared by the methods recommended by Mr. Lucas are so well 
 done, and differ so little or not at all from those animals as they are 
 recognized by us in nature, that nothing would be gained by reproduc- 
 ing photographs of them as illustrations to the present report; there- 
 fore the idea was not entertained. 
 
 This fact has also influenced in regard to insects; moreover, in the 
 case with that group our Government has already published very full 
 instructions upon their mounting and preservation for museum pur- 
 poses, and that taxidermist who aspires to be a master of every depart- 
 ment of his art can do no better than consult the admirable treatisi s of 
 Prof. 0. V. Eiley, and of Prof. A. S. Packard, and others in the same 
 field. 
 
 When we come to fishes, however, we at once enter upon the bor- 
 derland of the taxidermy of the great realm of the vertebrata, and for 
 it there exists a not inextensive literature, and methods and instruc- 
 tions are found almost without end. 
 
 Pishes seem to have constituted the bete noir of the museum collec- 
 tor and the taxidermist for ages past, and until the use of the gelatine 
 cast came into vogue their natural preservation seemed almost hopeless. 
 In alcohol many of them become shrunken, and a large percentage part 
 with their natural colors entirely. Moreover, the usual cylindrical jars 
 used to exhibit them in, on the museum shelves, so distort their forms 
 to the eye of the casual observer who thus views them through the 
 glass, that another serious disadvantage is added. To a large extent, 
 this has recently been overcome by Mr. J. E. Benedict, of the National 
 Museum, who, by indefatigable patience and thought, has devised very 
 neat appearing glass receptacles, with plane surface sides, and a few 
 ingenious devices for sustaining the contained specimens in more natu- 
 ral positions, thus largely doing away with the aforesaid disadvantage. 
 
 suit them in the future. I am indebted to Mr. Lucas for the loan of them, and they 
 are works of no little interest. They are as follows : 
 
 First Annual Report | of the | Society | of | American Taxidermists. | — | March 
 24th, 1880, to March 25th, 1881. | — | Rochester, N. Y. | Daily Democrat and Chronicle 
 Book and Job Print, 3 "West Main st. | 1881. 8vo., pp. 36. 3 process plates. 
 
 Second Annual Report | of the | Society | of | American Taxidermists. | — | March 
 25th, 1881, to March 24th, 1882. | — | Compiled by the secretary. | — | Rochester, N. 
 Y. | Judson J. Withall, Book and Job Printer, 39 N. Union street. | 1882. 8yo., pp. 
 56, with an announcement and index. 2 plates. 
 
 It is very much to be desired that this society should be reorganized, and that 
 upon a basis of organization of some one of our best societies in the arts or sciences. 
 The need for such a society is great. 
 
394 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 Still, where alcohol is the preservative used, there yet remain the loss 
 of color arid the distortion due to shrinkage. Many authors in the art 
 of taxidermy have suggested in their works from time to time various 
 plans for the skinning of fishes, and " stuffing" them much in the same 
 way that birds and mammals are done. But as a rule, failure of greater 
 or less degree is generally the outcome of all such attempts. I have 
 studied collections of stuffed fishes in many parts of this country and 
 elsewhere, and I yet have to meet with one in any museum or private 
 collection, that comes up to what it ought to be. We turn from the 
 cases of such objects with feelings of anything but a pleasurable nature. 
 We hear a great deal said about the beauty of birds, and they are beau- 
 tiful, but I, for one, see a beauty that is quite equal to it in the vast 
 majority of fishes. Where has nature a lovelier object to offer for our 
 admiration than a finely marked adult speckled trout just as the fellow 
 is pulled out of his natural element and lies in the bright rays of the 
 sun, panting upon a grassy bank? And, do we ever see anything that 
 very much resembles his incomparable charms in our miserable dried-up 
 collections of" stuffed" fishes? Hornaday has said: 
 
 Certain it is that in nearly every large zoological museum 'the stuffed fishes are 
 the least attractive, and the least lifelike of all the vertebrates, In many instances 
 the reptiles are not far behind in unsightliness, although, as a rule, they are a little 
 more lifelike than the fishes. In only one natural history museum out of twenty- 
 seven have I found » collection of stuffed fishes -which surpassed in number and 
 quality of specimens the collection of birds and mammals, and formed the most 
 attractive feature of the entire museum. That fish collection is to be seen in the 
 Government museum at Madras, India, and I have reason to believe it is- at present 
 the finest of its kind in existence. The collection consists of a very general assort- 
 ment of specimens from the Indian Ocean, and particularly from 'the Coromandel 
 coast, and besides a large number of small specimens it also contains as many large 
 sharks, Bhinobatidas, and rays as the authorities have been able to obtain without 
 duplicating the species. 
 
 The specimens were all mounted while fresh from the ocean, which, of course, lias 
 been a great advantage to the taxidermist. I was somewhat surprised to learn that 
 the taxidermist in question was an Indian native named P. Anthony Pillay, because 
 East Indian natives of all classes are almost without exception very bad taxider- 
 mists. Upon being introduced to Mr. Pillay, an old Mohammedan gentleman with a 
 long white beard, dressed in the style of his class, he very obligingly explained to 
 me his method of mounting fish of all kinds.* 
 
 Personally, I have but liltle or no confidence in cultivating the art 
 along on these lines, notwithstanding the measure of success attained 
 to by the Indian taxidermist just mentioned. For all large zoological 
 museums I believe that experimentation should proceed in the direc- 
 tion of discovering, if possible, some clear, transparent, preservative 
 fluid that will not change the form or color of the specimens, and then 
 exhibiting them in such positions as we would see them in aquaria 
 and such tanks containing living fishes as are to be seen at the exhibi- 
 
 * Hornaday, W. T. : A New and Easy Method of Mounting Fish Medallions. Sec- 
 ond Ann. Rept. Anier. Taxidermist, 1881-'82, p. 38. 
 
•Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 PLATE XX. 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOE MUSEUMS. 395 
 
 tion room, the grottos, of the U. S. Fish Commission at Washington, 
 D. C. Mr. Benedict, no doubt, has the correct idea in regard to the 
 form of the receptacles that should contain them, and that is a very 
 important step in advance. Added to this, the taxidernric artist has 
 a beautiful field open to him in his method of making plaster casts and 
 casts of gelatine, upon both of which he may exert his utmost powers 
 and ability to color so as to have them resemble the natural fish as 
 closely as possible, and I mean the natural fish immediately after he 
 has been removed from the water and wiped dry. The study of the 
 proper colors alone is in itself a vast subject, for they must not only 
 counterpart the natural shades of the specimens, but they must be 
 selected with the view to their permanency and general effect. Vari- 
 ous methods of gilding and silvering upon plaster-of-Paris, gelatine 
 casts, and papier-mache" ones require careful research and considera- 
 tion, as by their use many admirable results are to be obtained. 
 
 As to the large cartilaginous fishes, as the rays, sharks, and their 
 kin, we must believe thatthe processes just referred to are atpresent the 
 only ones known to us by which the living specimens can be reproduced 
 with any marked fidelity to nature and fit for a first-class museum. 
 
 By the old fashion "stuffing" method, it seems quite out of the ques- 
 tion, even for the most skilled taxidermists among us, to succeed iu 
 thus preserving a shark's skin, or that tissue in the troublesome ray. 
 They will not resist the effects of time. They shrink, become distorted, 
 and finally burst, and bring only failure and disrepute upon the art. 
 One may as well try and stuff a soap bubble, and fortunately there is 
 no necessity for either experiment. 
 
 In his usual vigorous style, the artist I have last quoted, remarks: 
 
 Eays are the meanest of all subjects that vex the soul of the taxidermist. Shun 
 them as you would the smallpox or the devil. Such abominable animated pancakes, 
 ■with razor edges that taper out to infinite nothingness, were never made to be 
 mounted by any process known to mortal man. To mount the skin of a vile ray, 
 and make it really perfect and lifelike, is to invite infinite shrinkage, rips, tears, 
 warps, defeat, and humiliation at the hands of your envious rivals. If you must 
 mount a ray, by all means get square with it at the start. Stuff his miserable old 
 skin with tow or straw, the more the better. Earn him, cram him, "full to the very 
 jaws," like the famous rattlesnake skin that taxidermist Miles Standish stuffed 
 "with powder and bullets." If you can burst him wide open from head to tail, by 
 all means do so, and you may call me your slave for the rest of my life. Make him 
 nice and round, like a balloon, and then no. matter what he does afterward to mor- 
 tify and disgrace you, and to drag your fair standard in the dust, you will always 
 have the satisfaction of knowing you are square with him. 
 
 Once when I was young and innocent, I encountered an enormous ray. He was 
 not thrust upon me, for I achieved him — and my own ruin also — at one fell stroke. 
 I mounted him willingly, nay, eagerly, as Phaeton mounted his chariot, to show the 
 rest of the world how all rays should be done. I mounted his vast, expansive skin 
 over a clay-covered manikin that had edges like a Damascus razor, and I made him 
 flat. He was flat enough to navigate the Platte Eiver at low water, which even a 
 thick shingle can not do. He was lifelike and likewise was a great triumph. But 
 almost the moment my back was turned upon him forever, he went back upon me. 
 
396 ItEfOftT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 I had put hiui up to stay put, so far as ray part was concerned, so he just got maj 
 and literally tore himself to tatters. He became almost a total wreck, and to mak< 
 my defeat a more genuine and unmitigated crusher, Prof. Ward sent word tome 
 all the way from Washington, that he would sell me that large ray for $5. I neve] 
 forgave him for that. 
 
 The hest way to mount a ray is to make a nice plaster cast of it, paint it, and ther 
 bury the accursed ray in a compost heap. As a class these fishes are remarkable, and 
 highly interesting, aud there is a far greater variety of them than anyone who is rioi 
 an ichthyologist might suppose. To me there is no other group of fishes moreinter- 
 esting, and, I may add, there is no other group that is, as a general thing, so poorlj 
 represented in museum collections. They exhibit all possible intermediate forms 
 between the ordinary shark and the perfectly round, flat ray. The intermediate 
 forms, Bhinohatii and Jihamphobatia, are naturally really the most interesting.* 
 
 Some very fine plaster-of-Paris casts of fishes of all kinds are to be 
 found in the collections of the IT. S. National Museum, but as has just 
 been remarked, for some reason or other the rays are but meagerly rep- 
 resented. These fishes, however, cast beautifully in plaster, and their 
 colors are not difficult to imitate. It would be hard, for example, to 
 find a more fitting specimen for museum exhibition than the plaster 
 cast of the skate shown in Plate xx of the present paper. The plastic 
 method also reproduces them with even greater fidelity, and it has the 
 advantage of not being near so easily injured or broken. So perfect are 
 these two methods that I will warrant that were we to take the living 
 skate, the gelatine and plaster casts, make photographs of them all of 
 the same scale and under the same conditions as the one seen in iny 
 plate, we could only with the greatest difficulty distinguish among 
 them. 
 
 Not only is it possible to reproduce life-like representations of living 
 fishes by means of the plaster-of-Paris cast, but to a certain degree we 
 can also, by the same means, show some of the habits of this interest- 
 ing group of vertebrates. A fine examine of this is seen in Plate xxi of 
 this report, wherein we are presented with a most excellent cast of a 
 shark (Carcliarhiniis obscurus) to whose left side has attached itself a 
 Eemora (Echeneis numerates), a habit this parasitic fish is habitually 
 addicted to, as is well-known. This fine piece of work, done by Mr. 
 Joseph Palmer, of the museum, has been colored very closely to imitate 
 life, and is not only a most interesting and instructive object to have on 
 exhibition in any zoological museum, but leaves but little to be desired 
 in the matter of conveying a correct idea of the form and general appear- 
 ance of these fishes, and in a method at once practical and, with care, 
 enduring. The mode of mounting such specimens is also seen in the 
 figures m the plates, and it probably can not very well be improved 
 upon, consisting as it does of two strong metal upright standards of 
 the proper length, and which are embedded below in the horizontal 
 base or stand of wood. This latter may be either plain pine, painted 
 black and heavily varu isl^m-^maybe of any of the dark, hard 
 
 * Taxidermy, pp. 215, 216. 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt 
 
 Plate XXI. 
 
 
 §9 
 
 o ft 
 
Report of National Museum, 1 892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 Nurse Shark (Cfinglymostoma cirratum). 
 From a i laster cast; greatly reduced. (Cat. No. 16009. U. S. N. M.) 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 PLATE XXIII. 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 397 
 
 woods highly polished. In any event the aim should be to have it all of 
 a pattern and kind throughout the museum for subjects of one class, as 
 these fishes. It admits placing the label adopted by the museum in 
 front and ia {he center below, which may be attached in various ways, 
 or simply fastened to an obliquely cut block of wood, finished in the same 
 style as the base, and left to rest free upon it. It is important that the 
 base should be as long, or nearly as long, as the specimen it supports, 
 for that not only lends an appearance of good balance and symmetry 
 to the whole, but it also is a great safeguard against the cast being 
 accidentally tipped over and broken, or broken by the specimen pro- 
 jecting out beyond it too far, and so not properly protecting it. 
 
 The Eemora shown in Plate xxi is at once recognized by the black 
 stripes down its side and the white corners to the caudal fin. It seems 
 to attach itself principally to the sharks, thus differing with its congener 
 of the ocean (Bemora sqtialipeta) so frequently found adhering to the 
 sides and bottoms of ships at sea, well below their water line. 
 
 Another fine cast of a shark ( Ginglymostoma cirratum) also in plaster, 
 is seen in Plate xxn, and viewed upon superior aspect. This not only 
 gives an absolutely correct idea of the animal it was taken from, but 
 shows very well the peculiar lateral corrugations of the skin, so charac- 
 teristic of this and other species. 
 
 Of the Teleosteans I am enabled to present in my plates quite a num- 
 ber of interesting and well-known forms, and if the methods of casting 
 in plaster-of-Paris and plastic compounds be so successful in the case 
 of the cartilaginous fishes, it requires nothing to be said that it is equally 
 applicable to them. 
 
 All of the casts of the specimens here offered are from the collections 
 of the National Museum, and the perfect manner in which they are 
 done is well exemplified in the specimen of the turbob shown in Plate 
 xxin (Rhombus maximus). Most, if not all of them, were executed by 
 Mr. Joseph Palmer with the assistance of his son, Mr. William Palmer, 
 under the supervision and direction of some ichthyologist of the muse- 
 um's staff, and skillfully colored by Mr. A. Z. Shindler. Among the 
 principal points to be looked to in making such casts is (1) the selec- 
 tion of as perfect specimens as possible, especially in the matter of 
 unmutilated parts, as fins and tail, and structures of the head ; (2) 
 the parts should be exhibited in a natural manner or properly spread 
 out; (3) the cast so made as to exhibit special characers; it should be 
 colored true to nature in a way already indicated ; and, (5) finally, 
 they should be well mounted, labeled, and exhibited in a closed glass 
 case. 
 
 Later on we shall see that fish do not require in these matters quite 
 as much knowledge, care, and study as do the reptiles; still they require 
 a good deal, and it should invariably be bestowed upon them. 
 
 More or less uniformly colored, and comparatively smooth fishes, 
 show up fully as well as those with many salient characters, and this 
 
398 REPORT OP NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 is well seen in such an example as the common Pompano ( Trachynotas 
 carolinus) of Plate xxiv, Fig. 2, which gives a most complete idea of this 
 interesting species. In most of these specimens the ventral fins, it will be 
 seen, have, before casting, been brought up so as to be in contact with 
 the body of the fish. This is done with the view of giving them the 
 support of the latter and thus greatly decreasing the danger of having 
 them broken off either through subsequent handling of the cast or 
 otherwise. 
 
 Plaster casts of fishes also admit, in some cases only, of having the 
 proper kinds of glass eyes inserted in them after the cast is made; or 
 some special structures added, as the barbels of certain species, or 
 spines of great delicacy, or hair-like appendages — these structures 
 being composed of some other material than plaster, and being painted 
 and made to naturally harmonize with the specimen as in life. This is 
 rarely, if ever, necessary in the case of those fishes cast in gelatine or 
 similar plastic compounds. This feature of the work admits of no lit- 
 tle skill and knowledge on the part of the caster and painter of these 
 vertebrates. Nothing should in any event be omitted that will lend a 
 true and life-like appearance of the original specimen, and very encour 
 aging progress is being made along such lines. 
 
 Another excellent plaster cast of a fish is seen in Plate xxv, taken from 
 a specimen of the Mirror carp (Cyprinus carpio), a fish with an inter 
 esting history in this country now, and which, among other characters, 
 is at once recognized by having "extraordinarily large scales which run 
 along the sides of the body in three or four rows, the rest of the body 
 being bare." 
 
 A fine cast is also shown in Plate xxv, fig. 2, it being the Buffalo fish 
 (Itiobus urus). 
 
 It is needless almost to invite attention here once more to the fact 
 of how well these casts here represent the forms as they appear- in life. 
 The red fish or bass of the Southern States {Scicena ocellata) has also 
 been cast, and a fine example of it exists in the collections of the 
 Museum. Where a fish has strong and pronounced external charac- 
 ters, such as large scales, large projecting rays to the tail or fins, and 
 marked characters of mouth or operculum, they are sure to constitute 
 one of the most favorable varieties of fish to cast in plaster, and they, 
 when skillfully painted, make some of the most striking specimens among 
 a collection of such objects. This may be appreciated by an examina 
 tion of the cast of the Parrot fish (Scarus sp. 1), showu in Plate xxiv, or 
 to nearly an equal extent in t*>* one of the Trigger fish (Balistes capri- 
 sens), a specimen of which is to be found in the Museum's collections; 
 and as for the reproduction of t .lor markings, we see a good example 
 in the cast of the well-known Mud fish (Amia calva), to Avhich Plate 
 xxvi, Fig. 2, of this paper is devoted. 
 
 We have already alluded to the use of the plastic method of casting 
 for fishes, and so far as my personal investigations have been directed 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 PLATE XXIV. 
 
 Fig. 1. Parrot-fish (Scarus sp. ? ). 
 From a plaster cast. > 
 
 Fig. 2. Common Pompano (Trachynotus carolinus). 
 From a plaster cast. (Cat. No. 23351, U. S. N. M.) 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOE MUSEUMS. 399 
 
 they have been concerned principally with the work of that nature done 
 by the U. S. Fish Commission, much of which was accomplished with 
 the view of having it exhibited at the World's Columbian Exposition. 
 In this connection my thanks are due Dr. Tarleton H. Bean for the use 
 of a series of photographs of the results of such methods and other 
 processes. These, unfortunately, with the single exception of the Opah, 
 were taken too small to be used here, and as the originals had been for- 
 warded to Chicago, it was too late to have them photographed of a 
 larger size. My thanks are also due to Mr. Denton for his kindness in 
 showing me his method of reproducing specimens of fish and reptiles by 
 the plastic method from casts made in plaster, and for submitting to 
 me for examination specimens of his work after they had been painted 
 and prepared for final exhibition. It would be difficult to overestimate 
 the value of this kind of work, and the field is a broad one, full of 
 importance and interest to the art student in taxidermy. 
 
 Specimens of many species of fish made according to such processes 
 bear very close resemblance to the living types, so much so that pho- 
 tographs of the two are scarcely to be distinguished. This may best 
 be appreciated by an examination of the specimen in the U. S. Fish 
 Commission, or the reduced photograph which that institution has of 
 the plastic cast of the Opah, from a specimen taken upon our own 
 coasts. Its peculiar form and high coloring rendered it a specially fine 
 subject for the skill of the person who reproduced it. Ichthyologists 
 have always expressed great interest in this member of the finny king- 
 dom, and if the digression be not considered too great, I will quote 
 here what Mr. Goode has said of it in The Fishery Industries of the 
 United States (p. 335). According to this distinguished authority, the 
 Opah family, or the Lamprididw, " is represented in the Atlantic by a 
 single species, Lampris guttatus, a pelagic fish, which appears to be 
 more abundant in the deep waters of northern seas than elsewhere. It 
 has been observed at many points upon the Norwegian coast, about 
 Iceland and Madeira, as well as in the Mediterranean, but is of unusual 
 occurrence everywhere, except perhaps about Madeira. On the coast 
 of England it is one of the great rarities, and is much sought for by col- 
 lectors on account of its beauty. It is said to be one of the most bril- 
 liantly colored fishes known — 'red and green, with tints of purple and 
 gold dotted over with silvery round spots. Iris of the eye is scarlet, 
 and fins of lively red.' A specimen was obtained years ago near Sable 
 Island, Nova Scotia, and the species will doubtless be found still nearer 
 our shores. It is said that no young specimens have yet been seen. 
 The species attains the length of 4 feet and more, and is said to be very 
 excellent eating." 
 
 Everything that has been said above in regard to the various methods 
 employed in times past, as well as at present, for the preservation of 
 fishes for exhibition in zoological museums and elsewhere applies with 
 equal truth to reptiles, The day has apparently fully arrived when 
 
400 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 the advanced student of taxidermy will no more think of employing 
 the old time-honored methods of stuffing a frog or a snake or a tortoise 
 than he would of mummifying a bird — a practice that was formerly 
 recommended, it is said, to avoid the apparent difficulty of removing the 
 skin. Of all the effigies, I think, in the forms of bad taxidermy that 
 have figured in such nightmares I have suffered from, or in my waking 
 dreams, the various stuffed snakes I have seen certainly take the palm. 
 They have been enough to frighten clean out of existence one laboring 
 under an attack of mania apot-n, as well as the reptiles one claims to 
 see upon such an occasion. It is almost impossible to remove the skin 
 from any kind of an ordinary snake without disastrously disturbing its 
 delicate scales and their beautiful arrangement. And, as for the "stuf- 
 fing" of frogs, why that may be left to those lovers of the "grotesque 
 in taxidermy," for surely such feats have no place in a scientific mu- 
 seum, and it has always been a wonder to me how they ever could 
 claim even a smile from a thorough naturalist, let alone words of praise. 
 
 My meaning in these premises will be made perfectly clear by turning 
 to Plate xxix, Fig. 2, which is from an excellent photograph of a specimen 
 of Gould's monitor (Monitor gouldi) now in the collections of the U. S. 
 National Museum.* This favored representative of the taxidermy of a 
 past decade, formed a part of the South Australian exhibit sent to the 
 Centennial Exhibition, at Philadelphia, in 1876, and subsequently, pre- 
 sented to the Institution, where it now is. To the enlightened taxider- 
 mist my saying it is a stuffed lizard would be all sufficient, but I fain 
 would invite attention to the absolutely impossible attitude it has been 
 compelled to assume. It is nailed to the base with coarse pins, whose 
 heads show on the top of every individual foot. The hind feet aie 
 rammed to a bursting point— the forefeet are empty. To save length 
 of stand the tail has been forced round to the side, and the toes are 
 alternately pointing to the four quarters of the globe. We do not pass 
 favorably upon that kind of work any more, and the only interest it 
 has for me is the stage it represents in the growth and development of 
 the art of taxidermy, though it is a comfort to know that the day for 
 such ridiculous productions is rapidly passing into history. 
 
 By whatever method done, the casting of most reptiles has one 
 great advantage over the casting of most fishes— an advantage to the 
 extent of exercising a greater skill and knowledge on the part of the 
 operator, for it must be easy for oue to realize that to make a plaster 
 mold of a flounder and a plaster mold of a frog are two very dif- 
 ferent matters. The first, beyond a spreading of tail and fins, requires 
 but little arrangement, whereas in the case of the second I have met 
 with many a person who could not for the life of him place a dead 
 frog in a natural attitude, to say nothing of making one ready and 
 obtaining a plaster mold of it. Lizards are sometimes still worse. It 
 is now, then, that we come to a point where good photographs, good 
 
 "Catalogue No. 8896. 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate XXV. 
 
 Fig. 1. Mirror Carp (Cyprinus carpio). 
 From a plaster cast; greatly reduced. (Cat. No. 25257, U. S. N. M.) 
 
 Fig. 2. Buffalo-fish (Ictiobvs writs). 
 From a plaster cast; greatly reduced. (Cat. No. 23658, U. S. N. M.) 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate XXVI. 
 
 The Mud-fish (Amia calva). 
 Plaster cast. (Cat. No. 20776, U. S. N. M.) 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 401 
 
 models, and good illustrations in the vertebrate series really first 
 come into play. It is only the exception among fishes that such 
 necessary adjuncts elsewhere will be found useful. One would hardly 
 think of looking for a model to make a cast of a "Needle Gar," for 
 instance; he might in the case of such a form as the Goosefish (Lophius 
 piscatorius) ; whereas in the case of an attacking Cobra, or some of 
 the winged or frilled lizards models would soon be in demand, or at 
 least very much more so. Snakes form no exception to these remarks, 
 for the attitudes assumed by them in nature are not only various 
 in the extreme, but in some cases downright peculiar. And, in good 
 groups of reptiles peculiar characters and habits should be exhibited 
 by showing them or exhibiting them by a duplication of the species 
 composing the group. The blowing viper (Heterodon) should not only 
 be preserved and shown with expanded and flattened fore parts, but at 
 a state of rest likewise. Take another example in the little lizard 
 Anolis, the American chameleon ; we would by no means gain a full 
 idea of its form and appearance from one specimen, colored bright pea- 
 green, and the flaming red ornament at the throat retracted; but we 
 should have a group of at least four or five of them, showing all such 
 remarkable characters, as well as the various tints it may assume when 
 it exerts it chameleonic powers. With many lizards and with many 
 snakes this is not always necessary, and with them one good, faithfully 
 colored cast will be quite sufficient. 
 
 Of course, the very large reptiles, as large Iguanas, Alligators, aud 
 even such large snakes as Anacondas and Pythons, admit of being skill- 
 fully mounted by the manufacture of bodies made of tow — that is, a 
 manakin,with internal wire supports and a final clay covering; but, as 
 I have said, it would appear that the time has come when all small rep- 
 tiles will no longer be so preserved, and the tendency to cast them is on 
 the increase. An ingenious method of preserving small reptiles in al- 
 cohol is resorted to by Mr. Samuel Garman at the Museum of Com- 
 parative Zoology at Harvard College, but I have never had the personal 
 opportunity of investigating it, though the fact that so able an herpi- 
 tologist recommends it as is Mr. Garman is enough to say that it pos- 
 sesses its merits for museum purposes. He claims that by its means 
 he "can give the specimens lifelike attitudes, or arrange them in 
 groups, as if playing, courting, or fighting; and the liquid heightens 
 their beauty, as the water does that of the pebble at the seashore, 
 while ravages of insects are entirely out of the question." 
 
 The larger Chelonia, as the Hawksbill, the Green turtle, the Leather- 
 back, and the Loggerhead, can also be mounted by the processes usually 
 recommended by the best taxidermists and successfully, and Mr. Lucas 
 has pointed out an admirable way for mounting the smaller turtles,* 
 
 *Lucas, F. A. : On the mounting of turtles. Third. Ann. Rep. Soc. Amer. Taxider- 
 mists, 1882-'83, pp. 84-90, 2 figs. 
 
 H. Mis. 114, pt. 2 26 
 
402 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 but even this does not convince me but what such mounts will finally 
 be superseded by the plastic methods and subsequent artistic painting. 
 I speak especially for the large scientific institutions where a full series 
 of alcoholics can be maintained in alcohol, and the exhibition series are 
 intended simply to faithfully present the external characters and ap- 
 pearances of the specimens. 
 
 The National Museum possesses at least one very elegantly preserved 
 crocodile. Mounted much in the manner pointed out above, it has been 
 placed in an attitude of rest, with very simple surroundings, but made 
 the more interesting from the fact that the taxidermist has placed upon 
 its back one or two specimens of that small Black-headed Plover 
 (Gharadrius melanocephalus), which in nature may often be seen perched 
 there, attracted as it is by the insects which occur in numbers upon 
 that part of the huge reptile. 
 
 Here we not only get a fine and naturally preserved specimen of an 
 important and widely known animal, but we likewise have represented 
 in the most striking manner one of the most engaging chapters in its 
 history. 
 
 In alluding to groups of reptiles, Hornaday, after all his long experi 
 ence, has said that — 
 
 I know of but oue good group of reptiles, and that is a group of turtles which 
 ■was prepared by Mr. F. A. Lucas, and displayed at the exhibition of the S. A. T. in 
 New York in 1883, where it received a medal, and afterwards was presented by him 
 to the National Museum. This altogether unique and pretty group teaches one very 
 important lesson, viz, that even the most commonplace animals are interesting when 
 they are well mounted and grouped with a setting which represents their natural 
 haunts. Some of the specimens in this group are represented above water, and some 
 beneath it, while one enterprising individual is caught in the act of diving, with 
 half of his body under water and the other half out. The situation represents the 
 successful accomplishment of a very netat mechanical feat and is of itself an illustra- 
 tion of the possibilities in such matters." 
 
 But progress of the most substantial nature, thanks to Mr. Goode, 
 is now being made along such lines in his collection s of the U. S. National 
 Museum, and I believe that in a very few years hence the exhibition 
 series of this institution will stand among the very finest in the world. 
 The consummate skill of the Palmers, Mr. Lucas, and a large trained 
 staff of many others of the first ability in designing, painting, and cast- 
 ing, is sure to make it so. Dr. Stejneger has been kind enough to place 
 at my disposition a number of the casts of his department (Reptiles), 
 for which and other courtesies my thanks are here tendered him. 
 
 With regard to the attitudes assumed by snakes, we may say that 
 they are exceedingly numerous and many of them very interesting to 
 behold. To secure figures of these for the use of modelers and casters 
 we have a host of fine illustrations throughout the literature of reptiles, 
 but I am more and more inclined to believe that a work devoted to a 
 carfully prepared series of photographs of snakes taken directly in 
 
 * Taxidermy, pp. 249, 250. 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt 
 
 Plate XXVII. 
 
 Common Garter Snake (Eutoenia sirtalis). 
 From a photograph of a living specimen by the author. 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt. 
 
 PLATE XXVIII. 
 
 •A 
 CO 
 
 8 £ 
 
 S « 
 
 a as 
 
 1 s 
 
 ft 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 403 
 
 their natural haunts is in reality what is now most in demand. At 
 zoological gardens, at least here at Washington, they are usually kept 
 in wire cages, often huddled together, and rarely assume the animated 
 attitudes most natural to them, and so, even if photographs could be 
 obtained of them there, they would hardly meet the end in view. That 
 they are easily obtained in nature. I have recently demonstrated in oue 
 instance for illustration in the presentconnection, though I am confident 
 with just a little more practice in that way the results can be made all 
 that is to be desired. About a month ago on my premises I secured a 
 good-sized Garter snake, uninjured in the least degree, and at once 
 placed him in a large glass jar. Immediately I cut out, on the bank 
 of a stream on my place, a suitable piece of ground, with plants grow- 
 ing on it, for my "base." This 1 placed out of doors on a large box 
 about the height of my camera, and for a background behind it I 
 placed a large sheet of common white blotting paper. My snake was 
 then removed from his jar and placed on the base. By tapping him 
 on the head he at once threw himself in the position I secured him in 
 in the photograph, of which Plate xxvn is a good copy. 
 
 Now, this operation altogether took less than an hour, and a fairly 
 good figure was the result. But it may be accomplished very easily in 
 another way; for all we have to do is to " go afield " armed with our 
 camera and a necessary number of plates, and a thiu board covered 
 with white blotting paper for our background, to be used for cutting 
 off superfluous foliage, etc. On meeting with a snake, or indeed any 
 small animal, he may in 50 per cent of the cases be obtained by the 
 methods above indicated. Becently I have even succeeded in get- 
 ting them on the ground by placing the camera right down in front 
 of them, putting up my background, then assuming a prone position 
 myself, focused and got my figure. 
 
 Such a photograph of the Helodermas was obtained by me in New 
 Mexico. The specimens represented in it were my own; they were 
 healthy and vigorous, and had been disporting themselves in the sun, 
 when, becoming tired, they sought the shade of some plants, and as 
 they assumed positions of rest I there photographed them. 
 
 All the figures of snakes given in the present report are from plaster- 
 of-Paris casts in the collections of the National Museum. They were 
 all made, I believe, by Mr. Joseph Palmer, and most naturally colored. 
 They are wonderfully fine things,- and a credit to any museum in exist- 
 ence. But what is still more to the point they faithfully represent the 
 originals, and that is what we want. Not only are these snakes in 
 plaster, but so are the tasteful bases of rock, etc., upon which they have 
 been placed. Take, for example, the rattlesnake shown in cast 950. 
 With tail elevated, and the reptile thrown into natural coils, partly 
 within the recess of the spreading roots of a large tree, we have an 
 accomplishment in plaster the equal of which for that particular snake 
 I do not believe to be extant. 
 
404 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 Quite as good is the young Ancistrodon in the collection, for here,' too, 
 the snake is partly within a recess and fully the anterior fourth of the 
 animal free. 
 
 Errors can sometimes occur, however, even in apparently such a sim- 
 ple procedure as properly coiling up a snake for a plaster cast, and as 
 line a work of art as it is in other respects, I am inclined to think that, 
 in nature a snake never so abruptly bends the neck as close to the head 
 as has been done for the one in Plate xxx. A dead snake may be placed 
 in a great many postures which in nature it never assumes, and these 
 dead attitudes must be guarded against; and it is just here where the 
 results of good photographs of snakes in nature come in most advan- 
 tageously. 
 
 In the coloring of snakes and other reptiles we should rely solely 
 upon specimens that are alive, and taken as subjects if possible just 
 after the " shed." It is almost needless to add that a cast should only 
 be painted from the snake from which the cast was made, and not 
 another specimen of the same species. Frogs, for some reason or other, 
 are not always well drawn and colored, and, as I have before re- 
 marked, some of the most abominable stuffed specimens and casts of 
 them are in existence. Those in some of our museums bear no closer 
 resemblance to the original animal than a camel does to a chestnut 
 burr. They are simply horrid. This is often the case, too, in many 
 departments of decorative art. Even our Indians, who occasionally 
 make pretty good hits, crude as they are, at pictorial decoration with 
 some of the animals they happen to be most familiar with, miss it 
 when they try the frog. Attempts made by the Japanese in such mat- 
 ters are often very much better than the results turned out by the 
 brushes and implements of our own artists and designers. There is one 
 very life-like plaster-of-Paris cast, colored, of this Batrachian in the 
 collections of the National Museum, and it is reproduced in Plate xxxi 
 of the present paper. It shows the animal in one of its most common 
 poses, and may well serve as a model for anyone who desires to copy 
 it for any purpose whatsoever. 
 
 Some grand results in the matter of the casting of turtles, both large 
 and small ones, have been accomplished in the workshops of the 
 Museum. These are either in plaster-of-Paris like all the specimens 
 here figured, or in some few cases the natural shell of the animal has 
 been retained, and the exposed external parts, as head, legs, and tail, 
 cast in the usual plastic material used, and subsequently fitted to the 
 former. When cast in plaster-of-Paris, they of course have to be painted, 
 as in the case of all animals so reproduced. When photographed, 
 these tints do not show, and consequently my figures, with the par- 
 tial exception of the box tortoise (Ciatudo), exhibit only the form of 
 the specimen. 
 
 Especial attention is invited to the beautiful cast of Aspidonedes 
 Plate xxxu, which is not more than one-sixth the linear length of the 
 
Report of National Museum, 1B92 — Shufeldt 
 
 PLATE XXIX. 
 
 s 
 
 «a 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate XXIX(a). 
 
 Monitor Gouldi. 
 Stuffed specimen; old style, faulty mounting. (Cat. No. 8896, U. S. N. M.) 
 
Report of National Museum, 1 892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 PLATE XXX. 
 
 CO 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate XXXI. 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 405 
 
 original. So far as external form is concerned it simply stands as 
 good as the original, as offering to the naturalists of all ages an abso- 
 lutely correct idea of this interesting chelonian. Lizards are more 
 difficult to cast than are turtles, as in many of their details of external 
 structure they are more delicately formed, and, iipon the whole, I do 
 not think an equal success has been attained at the Museum in the 
 plaster casting of saurians as has in the case of the chelonians. 
 Nevertheless the plaster casts of some of the larger lizards leave us 
 nothing to be desired in that art. " A truly magnificent thing is seen in 
 the plaster cast of Tupinambis (Plate xxxv). It would seem to be per- 
 fect in every particular, and by all odds is the finest result of the kind 
 that I have ever had the pleasure of examining. 
 
 Just here this is all 1 have to say in regard to the preservation of 
 reptiles tor museum exhibition, but the subject, in a general way, will 
 be reverted to again before closing this paper. 
 
 We next pass to a consideration of the preservation of birds. Upon 
 entering this department, after passing fish and reptiles in review, we 
 seem almost to come into entirely new fields. Zoologically birds are not 
 one bit more important than either fishes or reptiles, but from a popular 
 standpoint they have probably received, as every biologist knows, fully 
 fifty times the attention. Ornithological literature, taken by and large, 
 is a hundred fold more voluminous than that of the two other groups just 
 mentioned put together. Thousands of birds have been preserved by 
 one method or another (not including alcoholics), to one fish. When one 
 alludes to the art of taxidermy in the presence of the laity the idea that 
 first comes up is, that the taxidermy of birds only is intended; mammals 
 are far less frequently thought of by such people; and fish and reptiles 
 rarely or never. Plates, figures, drawings, and illustrations of this 
 group are far more numerous ; and, notwithstanding my sincere efforts 
 to equalize the illustrations for the various departments in this paper, 
 somehow or other the plates of birds constitute nearly one-half of 
 them. Many taxidermists t devote themselves to birds alone, and it is 
 only those in this country who are really finished adepts in the art that 
 can skillfully handle the preservation of any kind of an animal what- 
 ever, birds included. 
 
 Taking all this into consideration, one would naturally think that that 
 department,of taxidermy had made far greater progress than any other ; 
 but I hasten to say this is by no means the case. If we take the col- 
 lections of such an institution as the National Museum for example, we 
 find upon examination that there is quite.as much bad taxidermy among 
 birds as there is among mammals, and when it is bad it is very bad. 
 On the other hand, from the host of " terrifies " that still linger in the 
 cases of the ornithological department there has been growing out of 
 it of recent years a most satisfactory and most encouraging progress. 
 Both individual specimens - as well as groups of birds are now being 
 produced which bear every evidence- of the highest accomplishments 
 
406 KEPOET OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 attained to by taxidermists anywhere in the world. There are two great 
 reasons for this: First, taxidermy itself has only recently been raised 
 from the plane of mere cheap jobbery to the place it long ago should 
 have occupied — that is, to a school of living art; and, second, the selec- 
 tion from that school for employment in the Museum of at least a rep- 
 resentation. 
 
 Everything 1 have thus far said in the foregoing pages in the matter 
 of models, of grouping, and, indeed, of reproducing nature in the Museum 
 with respect to fishes and reptiles, applies with equal force to birds. 
 With regard to the photography of birds in their native haunts and 
 elsewhere, for the purpose of securing models as guides to natural atti- 
 tudes of this class of vertebrates for the taxidermic artist, it would seem 
 to be far more important here than with either reptiles or fish. This ig 
 so from the fact that in the case with the last two the specimens are 
 now most frequently cast, while, as we well know, with birds it is differ- 
 ent; they being skinned, the artist must have a model to go by for the 
 restoration of form. 
 
 Where models are not followed, especially in those cases where the 
 taxidermist may never have seen the bird either alive or even a good 
 figure of it, the most pitiable results follow. This is well seen in' PI. 
 xxxvi, showing two king penguins — birds of the same species. The 
 taller of the two was mounted by one of the old school-men taxider- 
 mists years ago, and it is so bad that J consider it quite beyond the 
 pale of criticism. The second and more upright bird, recently done at 
 the Museum, although in some particulars not everything it should be, 
 is such an advance upon the first, that comparison becomes quite unnec- 
 essary. Bad mounting of the kind just referred to is still more disas- 
 trous when it has been done in the case of a bird of great rarity, and 
 consequently of almost priceless value. This was unfortunately the 
 case in regard to the specimen of the Great Auk (Plautus impennis) 
 owned by the National Museum. A figure of this as first mounted by 
 some ancient bungler is shown on PI. xxxviij Fig. 1. No living auk in 
 good health ever stood in that position ; but thanks to what art can 
 sometimes accomplish in these days, this outraged bird was not des 
 tined for all eternity to stand as a drum-major at dress parade. 
 
 It was determined to have it remounted; an operation, owing to the 
 age of the specimen and a lack of knowledge as to what condition the 
 skin might be in, that required a full measure of judgment relative to 
 what taxidermy could hope for in such premises. The work of remod- 
 eling was accomplished by Mr. Wood, of the National Museum, and the 
 result is shown in Plate xxxvn, Fig. 2, and this now probably extinct 
 fowl, one of the treasures of the department, presents a far more respect- 
 able appearance, and is certainly posed in a far more natural attitude, 
 though judging from Audubon's plate of it, T believe, it still to be not a 
 posture this auk was wont to assume. Still, it was most assuredly the , 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892. — Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate XXXII. 
 
 Soft-shelled Turtle (Aspidonrctes ferox, ad.). 
 From a plaster cast; greatly reduced. (Cat. No. 8899, U. S. N. M.) 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892 — Shufeldt. 
 
 PLATE XXXIII. 
 
 55 
 
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Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate XXXIV. 
 
 
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Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate XXXV. 
 
 . 
 
 jj-*»% 
 
 
 '*^ ^-"" ** V 
 
 TUPINAMBIS TEGUIXIN. 
 
 From a plaster cast ; reduced. (Cat. No. 20790, U. S. N. M.) 
 
 / 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate XXXVI. 
 
 Old and Improved Methods of Mountino a Penguin. 
 From specimens in the National Museum. (Cat. Nos. 124684 and 15686, U. S. N. M.) 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 PLATE XXXVII. 
 
 s 
 
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SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 407 
 
 very best that could have been done under the circumstances; for when 
 birds' necks are stretched out of all proportion, and then allowed to 
 remain that way for years, it is by no means an easy matter to eveu 
 partially restore them again to their normal lengths. Even among the 
 more common birds there still linger numerous examples of old-style 
 bird stuffing in the cases of the National Museum. Some of these abso- 
 lutely violate every correct principle of taxidermy, and it is devoutly 
 to be hoped that the time is not far distant when they can be presented 
 to some fourth-rate museum or college "iu the provinces." Surely 
 both this Museum and the people have outgrown such scarecrows. I 
 allude to such looking affairs as we have represented in Plate xxxviii 
 of this report, a specimen of Larus occidentalis. Now, gulls make espe- 
 cially beautiful subjects when they are well mounted ; for in nature they 
 are graceful in the extreme, and their plumages, so simple and so harmo- 
 niously blended, are very attractive. Plate xxxix, a mounted specimen 
 of Creagrus furcatus in the national collection, is in my opinion an ab- 
 solutely lifelike reproduction of the bird as it appeared when it was 
 alive. It is nature and simplicity itself, and, with its neat stand, leaves 
 nothing to be desired in the way of mounting a single individual in an 
 attitude of rest.* 
 
 There is no class of vertebrates that admit of grouping for museum 
 exhibition that can exceed birds. Most of the species are small, which 
 is an advantage, inasmuch it allows us to increase the amount of nat- 
 ural surroundings; then a great many birds have very peculiar habits 
 and construct a great variety of nests, and these may often be repro- 
 duced with the greatest possible interest, t 
 
 One of the most lifelike groups of birds known to me is the pair of 
 Black Ducks (Anas obscura) and young, which form a part of the 
 ornithological mounted collection of the American Museum of Natural 
 History of New York City. Through the kindness of Dr. J. A. Allen, 
 
 * This gull was the work of Mr. Nelson R. Wood, one of the taxidermists employed 
 iu the National Museum, who also prepared all the mounted domestic fowls and 
 pigeons here shown with the exception of the white-faced black Spanish cock (Plate 
 lxix, Fig. 2) ; the Parrot (Plate xliv, Figs. 1, 2) ; the Baltimore oriole (Plate lxxhi) ; 
 the turkey (Plate xlviii,); and the great horned owl (Plate lxxii). Mr. Wood 
 has cheerfully tendered his assistance to me in several ways during my examination 
 of specimens, for which he fully deserves my thanks, as he does for the loan of his 
 living specimen of Gambel's partridge and Black Sumatra cock, both of which by 
 photography have been secured for plates for this paper. 
 
 tAccording to Mr. Goode: "The mounting of animals in picturesque and lifelike 
 groups in the midst of accessories taken from their natural haunts appears to have 
 been first attempted by Prof. Paolo Sav-i in the early part of the present century. 
 In the museum of the University of Pisa nearly one hundred of these are still pre- 
 served. One of these, a group of starlings upon the head of a dead sheep, is as tine 
 as anything since produced anywhere; and a pair of boar hounds attacking a boar 
 is, for action, the best piece of mammal mounting I have ever seen. The collection 
 is a wonderful one, and is still perfectly preserved." 
 
408 REPORT OP NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 of that institution, I am enabled to present that group here as one of 
 my illustrations. It is shown in Plate XL.* 
 
 The subjects shown in Plate xljii, Parrot; Plate l.<i, California Partridge; Plate 
 l-xii, Massena Partridge; Plate lxiii, Quail; Plate lix, Fig. 2, Quail; Plate lxiv, 
 English Pheasant; Plate lxv, Moor Cock; Platexxvn, Ruffled Grouse; Plate lxvu, 
 Fig. 1, Dusky Grouse ; Plate lx vn, Fig. 2, Richardson's Grouse, and the well-mounted 
 turkey head in Plate i.xix, are all examples of Mr. Densiow's style of mounting. 
 My thanks are due him for the loan of the drawing from which the figure of the 
 Great Horned Owl, shown in Plate lxxii, was made. It is from his well-filled "note- 
 book" of drawings and photographs of all kinds of animals from life and good 
 illustrations— just such a book as every taxidermist should compile. Mr. Denslow 
 tvas at one time employed by the National Museum and is in my opinion a taxider- 
 mist of the highest order ot merit. 
 
 Great simplicity may characterize groups of birds, or they may be 
 gotten up with every refinement of detail. A beautiful piece of work 
 representing the former style is to be found in the collection, where' 
 two flamingoes and their nests are represented; while of the latter 
 kind, it would be difficult to find a group anywhere that would present so 
 many interesting features, and such wonderful harmony iu detail, as is 
 seen in the group of jacanas, which, together with the flamingoes, were 
 sent on to the World's Columbian Exposition. The piece of pond workin 
 this latter, includingthe flowers and their leaves, and the handling of the 
 bottom, are simply exquisite. Such work is an adornment to any 
 museum, and a whole chapter in zoological science to any visitor who 
 may chance to give it any study whatever. The artist, I regret to say, 
 is not known to me, but there is no question that he knew a jacana.t I 
 have seen the birds alive in nature, and the way he has rendered the 
 peculiar habit the males have of vertically erecting their wings, in a 
 manner similar to our Solitary sandpiper, is capital. This delicate case, 
 as I have just said, was sent on to the World's Fair at Chicago, and it 
 is to be hoped that no misfortune will befall it either in going there 
 or having it returned here. 
 
 Perhaps some of the finest groups in the world are at South Kensing- 
 ton of the British Museum, and at the commencement of this paper I 
 quite extensively quoted from Dr. Sharpe's article upon the nature oi 
 many of them. That distinguished ornithologist, who is in charge of 
 the. department of ornithology there, has kindly sent me, as I have 
 before said, two beautiful photographs of their method of mounting 
 specimens of the diurnal Eaptores. Those photographs, unfortunately, 
 I had to have very much reduced, but still they show very well the 
 
 *This group was designed and prepared by Mr. Jenness Richardson, at the Ameri- 
 can Museum of Natural History, iu 1890; the studies being made from life at Gar- 
 diner's Island, New York, in May, 1889. The accessories were made by Mrs. E. S. 
 Mogridge, under the supervision of Mr. Richardson, and are actual facsimiles from . 
 nature. 
 
 iThe group was mounted by Henry Marshall, for many years the principal bird 
 taxidermist in the National Museum. — Editor. 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892. — Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate XXXVIII. 
 
 3 
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Report of National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate XXXIX. 
 
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Report of National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate XL. 
 
 1* 
 
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SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 409 
 
 grandeur of the scale upon which such work is executed. Their copies 
 are faithfully rendered in Plates xli and xlii, and to study them simply 
 means to excite our fullest admiration for such bold and truthful ren- 
 dering. In Plate xli one of the birds is exhibited in full flight, and yet 
 the rocky wall behind him seems to be in contact with his tail, and, in- 
 asmuch as there is no perch for him to have pitched off of in full flight, 
 the question might naturally arise, going at the rate he apparently is, 
 whence did he come? The defect so apparent is probably due to the 
 picture itself, which does not represent the actual and necessary space 
 that exists between the sailing bird and the rocky cliff behind him. 
 
 Such illustrations bring up to my mind the great question of the 
 amount of activity permissible in birds mounted for museum exhibi- 
 tion. My opinion in these premises can be briefly put. The great bulk 
 of individual specimens of small birds exhibited in the cases of a large 
 scientific zoological museum should be mounted up on . the T of the 
 perch in one of the most common attitudes of the species; a slight dip- 
 ping forwards, or slight inclination of the head in some direction, being 
 alone permissible. But this would give rise to great monotony, and to 
 break that we would advise a certain amount of activity in single spec- 
 imens. This should be accorded to those birds which normally are very 
 active in nature. With respect to groups of birds we may to a greater 
 extent indulge in arranging birds in different attitudes. At the best 
 this is what we would naturally look for anyway, for in groups of birds 
 the individuals composing it are more frequently mounted in the act 
 of performing something, either feeding their young or flying, or nest- 
 building, or some other avocation. Even violent action, as fighting 
 each other, or capturing their prey, may be introduced in a limited 
 number of groups. 
 
 The scolding parrot, shown iu Plate xliii, which, by the way, isamas- 
 tei-ly piece of work, is an excellent example of activity shown in a single 
 specimen, and this one subject would give relief to a dozen quiet par- 
 rots in the same case; or, for example, the other species, equally as well 
 rendered, shown in two views in Plate xliv, Figs. 1 and 2. For ordinary 
 small birds the style shown for the female oriole in Plate lxxiii is some- 
 times desirable, especially when a bird is selected having such active hab- 
 its as the'oriole has, and where the artist can succeed in reproducing one 
 of its more usual postures as well as has been done in the case of this 
 specimen. Otherwise it most certainly should not be attempted. But 
 the acme of all activity and of all grouping is reached when such artis- 
 tic pieces of work, so faithfully executed, so full of interest and all that 
 is natural, are set forth as the piece shown in Plate xlv. Mr. Adams 
 who both .collected and mounted this most attractive thing, would cer- 
 tainly have "capped the climax" had he been able to have brought 
 home the very section of the tree in which that identical Hornbill built 
 her nest. This part is artificial, Laving been built up of fine papier- 
 mache" ; but it i s only fairly well done. It represents the male of one of the 
 
410 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 species of Hornbills feeding the female, whom he has imprisoned during 
 the period of incubation in a hollow tree. I never pass it that I do not 
 think of what Wallace has said of the habit in his Malay Archipelago 
 (p. 147): 
 
 I had sent my hunters to shoot and while I was at breakfast they returned, bring, 
 ing me a fine large male of the Bueeros Mcornis, which one of them assured me lie 
 had shot while feeding the female, which was shut up in » hole in a tree. I had 
 often read of this curious habit, and immediately roturned to the place, accompa- 
 itied by several of the natives. After crossing a stream and a, bog, we found a large 
 tree leaning over some water, and on its lower side, at a height of about 20 feet 
 appeared a Bmall hole, and what looked like a quantity of mud, which I was assured 
 had been used in stopping up the largo hole. After a while we heard the harsh cry 
 of a bird inside, and could see the white extremity of its beak put out. I offered a 
 rupee to anyone who would go up and get out the bird, with the egg or young one, 
 but they all declared it was too difficult and they were afraid to try. I therefore 
 very reluctantly came away. In about an hour afterward, much to my surprise, a 
 tremendous loud, hoarse screaming was heard, and the bird was brought me, to- 
 gether with a young one which had been found in the hole. This was a most curi- 
 ous object, as large as a pigeon, but without a pa tide of plumage on any part of it, 
 It was exceedingly plump and soft, and with a semitransparent skin, so that it 
 looked more like a bag of jelly with head and feet stuck on than like a real bird.. 
 
 The extraordinary habit of the male in plastering up the female with her egg lid 
 feeding her during the whole time of incubation and till the young oneisfledgeffiis 
 common to several of the large hornbills, and is one of those strange facts in naijk 
 history which are " stranger than fiction." 
 
 A very favorable commencement has been made at the National 
 Museum of illustrating our own native birds by similar methods, and 
 it would not be easy to overestimate the value and interestlpiat 
 attach to so important a step. We have already in one handsome 
 single case a pair of shrikes with their nest and young in a thorn-apple 
 bush, while upon several of the spines of the latter are suspended vari 
 ous insects and a small mammal, showing the habit of those interestiif 
 birds in nature of thus impaling such creatures. Others are i#Jie 
 course of making, and still others in contemplation. A pair of Wood 
 Ducks with their real nest, taken from some lofty tree, is a good sub- 
 ject for some enterprising artist, and many others suggest themselves 
 to us. There were, magnificent groups of our birds sent on to tte 
 Columbian Exposition at Chicago, and when these are returned, as 
 they will be, it will form a fine basis for such a collection to be adied 
 to in the future. I fear I must leave a great deal unsaid here that I 
 would like to say, but it is to be devoutly hoped that the wide interest 
 our people are taking in such matters, and the national desire of build 
 ing up a National Museum at our fair capital, will induce our Govern- 
 ment to open the public purse to the extent of bestowing the room 
 required for the proper exhibition of this series, even to the giving of a 
 large and suitable building, now so much needed through the rapid 
 increase and accumulation of such treasures. 
 
 This will be the more necessary inasmuch as within a few years past, 
 through the wise foresight of Mr. Goode, another very important de- 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate XLI. 
 
 s 
 
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 £s 
 
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Report of National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate XLI1. 
 
 Method of Mounting Diurnal Raftores employed in the British Museum. 
 
 Reproduced from a photograph lsnt by Dr. E. Bowdler Sharpe, keeper of the Department of 
 Ornithology, British Museum. 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt, 
 
 Plate XLIII. 
 
 a. Scolding Parrot. 
 n of a specimen in the U. S. National Museum. (Cat. No. 126613, U. S. N. M.) 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate XLIV. 
 
 a S 
 
^Report of National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate XLV. 
 
 Male Hornbill Feeding Imprisoned Female. 
 (Cat. No. 116631, V. S. N. M. Collected and mounted by Mr. C. F. Adams.) 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 411 
 
 partment is growing up at the Government museums, and this in tlie 
 field we now have under consideration, and/it is the exhibition of the 
 finest possible specimens of all our domesticated fowls, especially 
 pigeons, chickens, and the like. So far as the art has applied itself to 
 the preservation and representation of these lately, it has been most 
 satisfactory, and many masterpieces of this kind now adorn the series. 
 The style in which the fowls are being done is well exemplified in 
 Plates xl vi and xlvii. Mr. C. A. Sharp, of LockporC, N. Y., imported 
 the birds there shown from England. They are both prize-winners, and 
 both splendid samples of Indian game fowl, cock and hen. At their 
 death they were presented by Mr. Sharp to the National Museum. 
 "Lady Whitfield," the hen, is an hundred- dollar bird, while her consort 
 brought $350. From an artistic point of view ; in so far as taxidermy 
 is concerned, they are markedly superior pieces of workmanship and 
 in every particular — pose, topographical anatomy, coloring, spirit, and 
 all. To appreciate their beauty, we have but to compare them with 
 some of the taxidermy that was done during the old regime of the 
 Museum's history. I mean such types of it as I am enabled to show in 
 Plate xlix, Pig. 2 — a White-faced black Spanish cock — a relic I ex- 
 humed from the vaults of the specimens now being discarded. What a 
 beauty (?) — saddle-backed, tail thrown up like a toucan's, wires show- 
 ing everywhere, most all of his body in front of his legs, stepping off 
 with both feet flat on the ground, and such a weird, grotesque, con- 
 sequential, lop-sided aspect anyway— this fright with no form of a fowl 
 known to me is only fit to grace the front window of a fourth-class cheap 
 bird "staffer's" shop. A few more such " spooks" as this still linger on 
 exhibition, as if by courtesy to the past, but they will shortly have to 
 make way before the work now coming in. 
 
 Sometimes these game cocks are " undubbed," that is their wattles 
 and comb are not trimmed off. In preserving these parts in a bird like 
 this they are cast from the original and restored in a plastic material, 
 that will keep indefinitely without change of form or color. After the 
 bird is mounted, these are properly attached in their places on the 
 head, and the suture lines colored over. The effect is absolutely per- 
 fect, and to show how perfect it is I have introduced two additional 
 figures, nearly life size, of the head of a game cock (Plate xlviii, Figs. 
 •1, 2). They will bear the minutest inspection from every critical point 
 known to taxidermists. In Fig. 2 the eye is unfortunately marred by 
 the light refraction, but we can not avoid that in photography. Thor- 
 oughly lifelike again is the pretty specimen shown in Plate L, a Silver- 
 spangled Hamburg hen. The artist who mounted this specimen is 
 a close student at all times of the various attitudes assumed not only 
 by fowls and pigeons of all kinds, but of the feathered creation at 
 large, and in this instance has happily hit the appearance of a hen 
 feeding as she walks along or regarding some small object on the 
 ground that has attracted her attention. 
 
412 REPOKT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 Another worthy subject is seen in Plate xlix, Fig. 1, a proud old 
 black Sumatra cock, that, comes from a line of fowls unsurpassed by 
 any in beauty or from. Mr. Wood, of the Museum, ow.ns one or more 
 of the grandsons of the rooster here portrayed, and through the skill 
 and patience of Mr. T. W. Smillie, in charge of the photographic gallery 
 of the National Museum, I am enabled to present figures from photo- 
 graphs of this cock, taken from the live bird. 
 
 They are valuable as models, going to show the disposition of plum, 
 age, the contour of general form, its attitudes, and general appear- 
 ance. These fowls are black all over, with strong blue and green 
 reflections in every changing light. Special attention is invited to the 
 elegant manner in which the superb tail is horizontally carried and the 
 proud carriage of the bird in Plate lxi. O ye artists of the pen and 
 block who diligently illustrate for our thousand and one agricultural 
 periodicals all over this country, and sometimes do not quite hit in your 
 efforts the galline form divine, pray look upon these portraits before 
 getting down to your easels again, and profit thereby! 
 
 Other remarkably fine pieces of work of this kind are seen in Plates 
 lii, liv, and lv. They are all equally good and deserving of the highest 
 compliment that I can give them, and that is they are absolutely true 
 to nature. My only regret is that they are not colored as well, for they 
 would then be still more lifelike and their real beauties greatly enhanced, 
 This factor is not so much missed in the good old light Brahma hen in 
 Plate lv, for she is largely black and white. She was presented to the 
 National Museum by Mr. Charles Griffin, of Shelter Island — with the 
 cock that goes with her they constitute a pair of fowls of great beauty. 
 (Plate liv and lv.) 
 
 Many of the domestic pigeons have also been treated at the Museum 
 quite as artistically as have the fowls. No opportunities have been lost 
 to catch these in their every mood, and reproduce them in preserved 
 specimens of the individuals themselves. One of the prettiest subjects 
 sent on to the Chicago fair by the National Museum was a large pigeon- 
 cot covered with many varieties of our tame pigeons, both the comnio| 
 and the rarer kinds. It was gotten up by Mr. Lucas in a manner that 
 admitted of no improvement, bearing as it did a true likeness to an 
 original. Two of the pigeons that were upon it are shown in Plate lti 
 and lvii. When one thinks of the stifl' and uncouth things that so 
 many taxidermists give us and call them pigeons, it is positively grate- 
 ful to turn to these here shown, and observe the eminently uatural atti- 
 tudes in which these gentle creatures have been thrown. One of the 
 prettiest pieces of taxidermy that 1 have ever had the pleasure of study- 
 ing is the dozing dovecot pigeon, depicted in Plate lvi. We hope that 
 this collection, now so well advanced, will continue to grow both nu- 
 merically and in the variety ot the species. . Were it possible to obtain 
 some of the steps in Mr. Darwin's numerous experiments with pigeons, 
 and all that he demonstrated thereby, and the corresponding forms and 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate XLVI. 
 
 Ihdian Game Hew, " Lady Whitfield." 
 (Cat. No. 106057, U. S. N. M.) 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate XLVII. 
 
 Indian Game Cock (dubbed). 
 (Cat. No. 106079, U. S. N. M.) 
 
leport of National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt. 
 
 PLATE XLVIII. 
 
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 Plate XLIX. 
 
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SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 413 
 
 crosses could be obtained, the plan would not be a bad one to devote a 
 few cases to illustrate so important a subject. 
 
 When we come to study the collection of mounted specimens of the 
 G-allinse in the ornithological cases of the Smithsonian Institution in 
 the large hall where all the mounted birds are exhibited, we find the 
 same condition of affairs presented to us, as has been described for the 
 other avian groups. Inferiority .of work, as a rule, characterizes the 
 older specimens, while real merit marks the most of those that have 
 appeared within comparatively recent times. This appears to have 
 been the case, in so far as the latter kind are concerned, during a period 
 extending over perhaps a twelve month prior to the opening of the 
 World's Columbian Exposition. Some fine work began to make its 
 . appearance just then, due apparently to that cause, which was having 
 a similar stimulating influence in all quarters, no art or industry being 
 exempt from it. The advances in methods and results was being 
 silently watched by me with a keen interest and appreciation, not to 
 say a feeling of pride and exultation at the genuine gain that was being 
 made in such matters. 
 
 My attention, among other things, was especially drawn towards the 
 group to which allusion has just been made, particularly the American 
 partridges and grouse and their allies. Some of the species of par- 
 tridges that were being mounted and placed in the cases struck me as be- 
 ing more life-like than was common, and I mentally compared them with 
 my recollections of the living species in -nature, as well as all the figures I 
 knew of them. As the present paper began to take on form I deter- 
 mined, if possible, to introduce copies of a few photographs of living 
 partridges, and, as has been mentioned on a previous page, the opportu- 
 nity was duly presented. Mr. Smillie was good enough in my presence 
 to make several exposures upon a living specimen of Gambel's partridge, 
 and some of those results are well worthy of publication. They are 
 presented in Plate lix, Fig. 1, and Plate lx. In the first figure the 
 bird had elevated all his feathers just prior to preening himself. This 
 in a way should be compared with the xjuail shown in Fig. 2, recollect- 
 ing, however, that the living bird is not on the ground and that the 
 mounted one is done with the act of preening and is just about to shake 
 herself. 
 
 In Plate lx the bird was taken as it sat quietly upon a perch, and 
 slightly elevated the feathers at the neck and forepart of the body. It 
 shows that one of the feathers of its plume was broken and hung down 
 below the others and is not a shadow, as might by some be supposed. 
 This figure is a fine model for those whe may desire to mount a par- 
 tridge in this attitude. Although of a different genus, it is interesting 
 to compare this with the partridge shown in Plate lxiii, which is one 
 of the best mounted specimens of a Colinus with which I am acquainted. 
 It will be noticed that the slight flatness that naturally exists over the 
 pectoral region is apparent in both the living bird and in the specimen 
 
414 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 shown in Plate lxiii. This feature should also be compared with what 
 we see in Plate lx. 
 
 Some excellent judges of the taxidermy of birds have spoken very 
 highly of the California partridge shown in Plate lxi, and though ap- 
 parently in all essential respects faultless in workmanship, design, and 
 execution, it is to me not as pleasing a result as the Cyrtonyx seen in 
 Plate lxii. Birds of the latter species I have seen in New Mexico, and 
 in nature they exactly have the form here shown. The model used in this 
 case, however, was from the figure in Gould's monograph on the Odon- 
 . tophorince, while in the case of the California partridge it was from life. 
 
 Of the larger game birds the Museum has quite a number of a char- 
 acter not to be excelled by any institution in the world, and probably 
 not fully equaled by any other in this country. They must excite even 
 the admiration of those who care ever so little for either ornithology or 
 for the feats of pure art in taxidermy. But such people, fortunately, 
 I am not now dealing with and care less for. But tell me, where is the 
 naturalist, or the sportsman, or the taxidermist, or the cultured any- 
 where who can not see the extreme beauty and excellence in sueh 
 specimens as I have been permitted to present in such a piece as the 
 Pheasant portrayed in Plate lxiv, or the moor cock shown in the next 
 plate following, or Plate lxv. It is too bad we can not show the color 
 in such a specimen as this, for it is surely a gorgeous fowl. There is 
 another specimen of the moor cock in the collection and the taxider- 
 mist has attempted to mount it in an attitude of strutting on a log, or 
 a large bough, I do not remember which now, for I only remember the 
 unpleasant sensation left upon me after having seen the bird itself. It 
 has the appearance as though it was about to have a spasm. It is an 
 excellent example of — very bad taxidermy. 
 
 Wolf's superb drawings form almost an inexhaustible supply of grace- 
 ful and accurate postures and positions of all kinds of vertebrates, and 
 it was from that work that the artist secured his model for the Euffed 
 grouse reproduced in Plate lxvi. In placing this, however, before the 
 camera I gave it a front view rat*her than a lateral one, this being, as 
 is well known, one of the severest tests to which you can submit the 
 artist's work, especially in a piece of this kind. How well it stands it 
 others must be left to judge; for my own part and in my" humble 
 opinion it represents to a line, to a feather, a startled grouse as he 
 regards from the bough of a tree the object that has alarmed him. The 
 balance, with upper wing slightly lowered, with tail flatly outspread, 
 raised ruffs, and eager look, the position of the feet— indeed the entire 
 poise is admirable throughout. 
 
 In order to show how well some of the other species of our grouse have 
 been preserved I chose the two shown in Plate lxvii, Figs. 1, 2, either of 
 which are as good as they can be made. It would have been an easy 
 matter here to have selected a dozen or more mounted specimens of 
 grouse from the collection that would have shown how bad these birds 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 PLATE LIV. 
 
 :.'->-. ■ ■£ 
 
 WML 
 
 mim 
 
 AW ! 
 
 Light Brahma Cook. 
 (Cat. No. 106043, U. S. N. M.) 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt 
 
 Plate LV. 
 
 Light Brahma Hen. 
 (Cat. No. 106044, U. S. N. M.) 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 415 
 
 can be mouuted when they fall into the hands of the unskilled. It is 
 better, however, I think to forget and forgive all that has been done 
 in the past, provided we continually strive to copy nature as closely as 
 possible in the future. To this end I reproduced as many good models 
 as possible, and have given only a few showing how taxidermy ought 
 not to be done. Examples of the " ho w-not- to-do-it" kind have been in- 
 troduced here and there only as warnings. 
 
 Our wild turkey seems always to have given trouble to the old-time 
 taxidermists, and some perfect frights are made to do duty for that noble 
 fowl in the collection. Some of these are so badly prepared that they 
 are downright hideous, while in some respects they fail to give any idea 
 of the bird or its appearance in nature. The taxidermy of the turkey, 
 moreover, presents difficulties that are to be encountered only in a lim- 
 ited number of birds in any avifauna. Chief among these problems is 
 the proper preservation of the practically featherless head. This is not 
 only without feathers, as we know, but in life is highly colored, corru- 
 gated, and wattled below. Whoever it was that prepared the turkeys 
 in former times that now disgrace the cases of the ornithological depart- 
 ment I do not pretend to know, any more than I know the reason why 
 such miserable fifth-class pieces of work are retained there, unless it 
 be something after the order of Chinese ancestry worship, and an op- 
 posing of the methods of the moderns. 
 
 To condemn the bad and to recommend every result that reproduces 
 nature is my object here, and this thought was uppermost in my mind 
 when the comparison made in Plate lxix was undertaken. As one looks 
 at this plate the left-hand head shows how wretchedly bad meleagrine 
 taxidermy may be done sometimes. The wattle-like comb has had no 
 pains whatever taken with it, and appears more like a curved, semi- 
 erect, filamentous horn than anything else; the skin of the head has 
 been stretched down an inch lower tban it belongs, rendered possible 
 by the "stuffer" eliminating all the corrugations that naturally occur 
 in it; then the feathers that belong on the back of the neck are twisted 
 round to the front. After it was dry he further insulted the poor bird 
 by blotching his neck all over with red, white, and bluepaint — patriotic, 
 but a villainous practice notwithstanding. 
 
 Compare this with the second head in tlie same plate. In the first 
 place it is perfect in form, and all the parts are naturally disposed. 
 This bird's head is restored in wax— that, is the skin of it is, together 
 with the comb and anteroinferior wattles. In this the proper colors 
 have been so adroitly incorporated that the effect produced is life-like 
 in the highest degree. Even the little hair-like feathers have been by 
 a process of the art normally scattered in their places over the head. 
 The remainder of the bird is prepared quite in keeping with this truly 
 beautifully preserved specimen. An old gobbler of this species is shown 
 in Plate lxviii. He is mounted in the act of strutting, and the models 
 for it have been furnished principally by the act as it is performed by 
 
416 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892 
 
 the domesticated bird. I consider this to be one of the finest pieces of 
 modern taxidermy, so far as birds are concerned, in the museum. The 
 arrangement of the exceedingly profuse plumage is perfect; the mark- 
 edly oblique tilting of the spread tail, a feature that it is difficult to 
 appreciate in the plate, is most truthfully rendered. This bird's head 
 was prepared after the usual methods, but I understand it is contem- 
 plated to model it in wax, like the one just described above. When 
 this is done I believe the National Museum will possess the finest 
 specimen of a mounted wild turkey in existence. 
 
 Owls have not only given a great many artists infinite trouble to 
 correctly portray, but they have likewise been placed upon the black 
 list of a perfect host of taxidermists. Literature illumed by plates of 
 birds goes to show that many an ornithologist who could draw and 
 paint nearly every other kind of bird failed when owls were essayed. 
 So, too, there are taxidermists who can mount most all birds correctly, 
 who fail to a large extent when they take any of the Striges in hand. 
 Wilsou, the American ornithologist, used to complain bitterly of his in- 
 ability to figure any of these birds exactly to his liking, and even the 
 master, Audubon, shows a little weakness sometimes in such directions. 
 Now, in my first attempts at the photography of birds, owls were the 
 subjects, and one might think, inasmuch as they quietly roost and 
 doze nearly all day, that is, the strictly nocturnal species, they would 
 be easy subjects, but this is by no means always the case. A number 
 of years ago, in New Mexico, I frequently tried specimens of Aiken's 
 Screech owl (Megascops asio aikeni), but the results obtained were never 
 entirely satisfactory to me. I have kept many kinds of American 
 owls alive in my lifetime, and these screech owls have a habit, com- 
 mon to some other species during their dozing hours during the day, 
 of drawing themselves up in an erect attitude, with all the feathers 
 compressed against the body, and with the plumicorns erected to their 
 fullest extent. But when we come to try and photograph one in such 
 a desirable attitude, we must, to get him anything like life size, get 
 the camera within a very few inches of his owlship, and this almost 
 invariably alarms him, and he will flatten out his plumicorns, puff him- 
 self up, and then, after a second's idiotic stare, fly to some other part of 
 the room. Photographing them at a longer distance makes the figure 
 of him too small. 
 
 I was once a whole day here at Takoma endeavoring to secure a pho- 
 tograph of oneof our Common Screech owls (Megascops asio) in myroom — 
 and then failed. He would jump up on top of my camera, emit a loud, 
 rolling whistling note of disapproval of the procedure, dash off and 
 finally nearly brain himself by bumping into the mirror of my wardrobe. 
 I'd hypnotize him, stand him on the perch, and disappear for half an 
 hour, and on my return he would be standing up as straight as a rocket 
 in just the position I wanted him, but all my efforts to sneak up to the 
 camera and remove the cap and make the necessary exposure failed 
 
Report of National Museum, '1892 Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LVI. 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 PLATE LVII. 
 
'Report of National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LVIII. 
 
 Fig. 1. Pigeon. Black Outside Tumbler, cf. 
 (Cat. No. 106100, U. S. N. M.) 
 
 Kg. 2. Dove-cote Pigeon. (Act of preening.) 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOE MUSEUMS. 417 
 
 utterly, for he would reenact the same performance I have just described. 
 Finally I tied a piece of strong pack thread to his leg and took him out 
 of doors, took him in the broiling glare of the sun, and giving him a 
 blotting-paper background and a pretty perch, I went at him again. 
 After numerous attempts I secured the fairly good result shown in 
 Plate lxx. When obtained he was staring his eyes out at a chicken that 
 was making a disturbance not far away, and with a pin-hole diaphragm 
 in, I gave him an exposure- of at least ten seconds, during which time 
 he never moved. His right foot exhibited an old dislocation, and its 
 twisted position is,, evident in hi" ^picture, lam indebted to Master 
 Richard Lay, of Takoma, D. C, foAhe loan of this bird, for which and' 
 for his trouble in capturing it for me I desire here to express my grate- 
 ful acknowledgments. It is my intention to experiment with the pho- 
 tography of owls until I succeed in getting a fine series of them in all 
 possible poses, with the hope that when duly published they will prove 
 useful to both artist and taxidermist. On a former page I have invited 
 attention to the picture of the owl shown in Plate lxxii. It is a plate 
 made from a photograph of a drawing that was accurately copied from 
 the original photograph of the bird, and is a good result and ought to 
 prove useful both to the artist and to the taxidermist. This pluffing up 
 of the feathers in Bubo is common practice with them, and the act, to 
 a moderate degree, has been well rendered in the exceptionally fine 
 mount of one of the bubonine owls which I offer in Plate lxxi. It 
 shows the bird in what might be called the first stage of observant 
 defiance, or when something, evidently not of a pleasing nature, has 
 attracted his attention and he is " getting on a ready " to repel it. The 
 original has but to be seen to be admired, for it is remarkably well 
 done. 
 
 There is not much encouragement to the taxidermist if the ever pres- 
 ent fact is before him that the work with which he has taken so much 
 pains, and given so much of his labor, is at last to be but poorly exhib- 
 ited; that is, his birds are to be huddled together in small and unsuit- 
 able cases, and those in an illy-lighted hall. Unfortunately this is just 
 what exists in the ornithological department now in the old Smithson- 
 ian Institution building, where certainly 50 per cent of the room space 
 is particularly not of the proper kind wherein to exhibit birds. This 
 subject, though not altogether foreign to the present report, is in reality 
 one that should be far more extensively dealt with than I will be ena- 
 bled to do in this connection. 
 
 Of all the departments of the art of taxidermy none can exceed, and 
 I doubt any can quite equal, the talent required to properly preserve 
 mammals. This is due to the fact that in a vast majority of them the 
 hair is sufficiently short to exhibit the anatomical contours of the body, 
 head, and limbs, while in some the hair is practically entirely absent, 
 and this very much increases the difficulty. The proper handling of 
 the mouth and associated structures, of pertain special organs, and of 
 H. Mis, H4, pt, 2 27 
 
418 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 the feet and ears, etc., all conduces to this. And so, of a consequence, 
 it especially devolves upon the taxidermist of the class of the vertebrata 
 to provide himself with accurate drawings and with photographs of 
 mammals, also with casts and figures of the skinned bodies and parts 
 of bodies of his subjects. This is just what the sculptor is obliged to 
 do in his art, and I remember very well, years ago, when I enjoyed the 
 rare opportunity of watching Mr. John Eodgers at work in his studio. 
 I have known him to carefully measure as many as thirty well-formed 
 horses and take the average of those measurements so as to get at the 
 data to model a handsome animal for a statuette of Washington. Not 
 content with this, he had also in his room a complete series of plaster 
 casts of the superficial mifscles and other structures demonstrating 
 equine morphology. 
 
 Further, all the principles I have referred to in the taxidermy of 
 birds apply, almost without exception, to the class now to be consid- 
 ered. Groups are of especial interest where mammals are the subjects, 
 and the National Museum has some of the grandest of them now on 
 exhibition as a part of her mammalian series known to any institution 
 of the present time. Take, for example, the group of American opos- 
 sums in the collection. This was mounted by Mr. Hornaday, who has 
 described it in the following words in his work on taxidermy. He says : 
 
 The case which incloses the entire group is 4 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 3 feet 
 high. The frame of the case is as light as possible, and all four sides and the top 
 are of glass. On the side of a sloping bank stands the base of a small gum tree, 
 with the roots on the lower side exposed by the crumbling away of the bark. Of 
 course the trunk rises to the top of the case, where it is cut squarely off. At the 
 bottom of the sloping bank between two of the roots is an opening, which is recog- 
 nized at once as the doorway to the opossum's home. The burrow winds upward 
 between the roots of the tree, and finally turns off to the left into the bank, where, 
 after running through a passageway of 2 or 3 feet in length, the nest itself is found. 
 It is in a pocket-like excavation, and a circular section is cut out of the front of the 
 bank so as to make an opening through which the nest can he seen.* 
 
 The nest is lined with dead leaves, in which lies an opossum curjed np and sound 
 asleep. At the back of the case a sectional view of the bank is represented, and by 
 means of an opening cut here and there the course of the burrow is plainly seen. 
 In the foreground is an old mother opossum with several young ones riding on her 
 back, clinging to her gray coat, while the head of another protrudes from her 
 pouch. This represents the manner in which the opossum carries her young after 
 they have reached a certain age. From a small branch hangs another opossum, sus- 
 pended by its prehensile tail, sprawling in midair. This specimen is a female^ and 
 shows the size and location of the wonderful marsupial pouch. i Another individual 
 
 * This I take to be the only real defect in this otherwise masterly piece of taxi- 
 dermic art. That cut, subcircular as it is, is constantly being mistaken for the real 
 entrance made by the animal to its burrow, and what is the true opening between 
 the roots of the tree often overlooked. The false cut should have been made on the 
 end of the bank, where the side glass covers its supposed section, and we could have 
 seen into the burrow through it. This can easily be remedied. 
 
 t This individual does not appear in the group as it is now exhibited, but forms a> 
 separate piece. 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LIX. 
 
 Fig. 1. Gambel's Partridge (C. gambeli, cf ). 
 Act of preening and elevating of plumage. (From photograph of living bird.) 
 
 Fig. a. Quail (Colinus, 9 )■ 
 Elevation of feathers prior to shaking herself. (Cat. No. 112923, U. S. N. M.) 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LX. 
 
 Gambel's Partridge (Callipepla gambeli, <S ). 
 (From photograph of living bird.) 
 
Report ot National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LXI. 
 
 California Partridge (Callipepla californica, d). 
 Reduced. (Cat. No. 107407, TJ. a N. M.) 
 
I Report of National Museum, 1892. — Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LXII. 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892 — Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LXIII. 
 
 .■;■■-..■ "•: ■ ■ "... . ■ ■ — ""- ~ "':■:■:.■:■■ ;.- ■. ■■ ■ ■■ ■' . ' . — 
 
 ~^ — 
 

 Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LXIV. 
 
 English Pheasant. 
 On elevated station, surveying objects below. (Cat. No. 116855, U. S. N. M.) 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LXV. 
 
 Mook Cock (T. tetrix, rf). 
 Reduced. (Cat. No. 136374, U. S. N. M.) 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LXVI. 
 
 Ecjffbd Grouse (Bonasa umbellus). 
 On bough. Reduced. (Cat. No. 87097, U. S. N.M.) 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892. — Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LXVIL 
 
 Fig. 1. Dusky Grouse (Dendragapus obscurvs). 
 Reduced. (Cat. No. 112683, U. S. N. M.) 
 
 Fig. 2. Richardson's Grouse (Dendragapus canadensis richardsoni). 
 Reduced. (Cat. No. 126345, U. S. N. M.) 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LXVIII. 
 
 Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo). 
 Reduced. (Cat. No. 117389, U. S. N. M.) 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LXIX. 
 
 * -a 
 
 y. 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 419 
 
 is climbing up the trunk of the tree. A fourth specimen, which has been disturbed 
 by another, is pausing to protest with widely opened mouth, while in the act of 
 creeping into the mouth of the burrow. 
 
 Pleasq notice the number of facts that are taught by this simple little group. It 
 shows that the opossum is a marsupial, and the female carries her young in a pouch 
 in her own body ; that when the young reach a, certain age they ride upon the 
 mother's back, clinging to her fur; that the animal is arboreal in habit and has a 
 prehensile tail, by which it is capable of suspending itself; that it burrows in banks 
 in dry situations, and sleeps curled up like a ball in a bed of dry leaves. It also 
 shows the full size of the adult, the young of the previous year, and the recent 
 brood. But for, an unfortunate accident, which has yet to be repaired, it would 
 also show the number born at one birth. Of course in this group the grass and moss 
 are properly represented, and there are artificial leaves on the tree branches which 
 enter the group (pp. 240, 241). 
 
 Very truly Mr. Hornaday further remarks in the succeeding para- 
 graph: 
 
 Groups of this class can easily be made to show the ordinary nesting and breeding 
 habits of the animals represented. Now it happens that animals of some species 
 make a variety of nests, according to circumstances or caprice. In 1889 we prepared 
 a group in three sections, each of which shows one of the habits of the gray squirrel 
 in nesting. Each is composed of an actual nest, and in the identical tree in which 
 it was built by Bunny himself. One represents a nest in a hollow beech tree, in 
 which a pair of gray squirrels bred for years. Another is what might be called a 
 summer nest, made of cedar bark, in the top of a cedar tree. The third section 
 represents an outside nest of green oak leaves, placed on a branch of an oak tree. 
 These three groups are exhibited in one case, but while each is separated from the 
 others by a plate of heavy tinted glass, it is made apparent that they all illustrate 
 the habits of the same animal. The specimens composing the three groups were all 
 collected within a radius of 10 miles of the' city of Washington. Besides teaching 
 what the nesting habits of the gray squirrel are, it also impresses upon the observer 
 the very important fact that the habits of different individuals of a given species 
 are capable of wide variation.* They show how dangerous it is for a student or 
 scientific investigator to generalize too freely from one or two facts, and that it is 
 dangerous for anyone to say what an animal will not do (p. 242). 
 
 Another scientifically mounted marsupial in the collection is seen in 
 the single specimen of the great Rock Kangaroo (Macropus robustus) 
 (Plate lxxiv). This piece of work was done by Mir. Jenness Richardson, 
 then holding the position of taxidermist of the American Museum of Nat- 
 ural Historyof New York City, N. Y., where he produced some avian and 
 mammalian groups quite worthy of his distinguished instructor, the 
 artistfrom whom I have just been quoting. This large and thoroughly 
 life-like specimen, place din an attitude so natural to it, and with every 
 structural detail so perfectly preserved, is decidedly the best kangaroo 
 in the museum, and being so good, it has the effect of still further 
 depreciating the specimens of bad taxidermy of animals of the same 
 
 *And what is quite as important, the species, as it occupies a very limited geo- 
 graphical area. Had the place where these squirrels were collected been in an 
 unknown locality > and recently explored, one naturalist might have come away 
 with specimens and one set of notes on breeding habits, and another, and a third, 
 come away with, different accounts, none of the three of which would have agreed 
 in this particular. 
 
420 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 family kept in its proximity in the mammal hall. Some of these are so 
 bad that they have been ordered into the workshops for remodeling. 
 Such a one is shown in Plate lxxv, and it is a very good example of 
 how kangaroos ought not to be mounted. 
 
 About as near perfect as mammalian groups can'be made is another 
 one in the collection seen in the armadilloes (Plate lxxvi). This has 
 three animals preserved in it, all in different positions, while the sur- 
 roundings, as plants, cacti, etc., are originals that have been collected in 
 the section where these interesting animals are found. So far as its taxi- 
 dermy is concerned, it may be said that the form of the'armadillo is 
 more or less fixed, yet it presents problems to the taxidermist which 
 are quite as difficult to deal with as is the fitting the skin of a hairy 
 mammal to its manakin. If I remember (for the group has at the 
 present writing gone on to the World's Fair at Chicago), some of the 
 accessories in it, as the cacti, are casts, but their reproduction is so 
 perfect, spines and all, that it is simply impossible to distinguish them 
 from the plants as they occur in nature. Speaking of cacti and this 
 group of armadilloes reminds me of a conversation that I had with 
 Mr. William Palmer, who is now doing such admirable work in the 
 taxidermy of mammalian groups at the Museum, in regard to the 
 reproducing in some group a specimen of the giant cactus of our 
 extreme southwestern territorial districts. It may be introduced with 
 great effect in some one of a variety of ways, either in the mammal or 
 the ornithological department, and it is to be hoped that that will be 
 done some time in the near future. Mr. H. W. Henshaw once remarked 
 to me that he found a species of our pigmy owls breeding in holes in 
 the giant cactus, and a group embodying this idea would certainly be 
 one of great value and interest. 
 
 A. group of mammals requiring an entirely different kind of handling 
 from any we have thus far noticed is seen in the Cetaceans. Papier- 
 mach6 is here the material to reproduce its various species in the most 
 satisfactory manner, and a very fine example of this is seen in the cast of 
 Prodelpltinws plagiodon (Cope), shown in Plate Lxxvia. Here much 
 depends upon the skill of the colorist, and the smooth surface of the 
 material used offers a- beautiful ground to him whereupon to reproduce 
 the exact natural tints of the animal as it is seen in nature. Mr. Shiu- 
 dler, of the Museum, is an adept at much of this, and examples of his 
 skill are best shown in -some of the fishes which were noticed upon a 
 preceding page of this report. Incidentally it may be said that to the 
 zoologist this species of Dolphin is a very interesting one, and its char- 
 acteristics and relationships have been set forth by Mr. F. W. True in 
 Bulletin No. 36 of the U. S. National Museum publications, entitled 
 "Contributions to the Natural History of the Cetaceans, a Eeview of 
 the Family Delphiuidse" (p. C6). By all odds the papier-mache" cast 
 is the most effective way in which to reproduce the cetaceans for 
 museum exhibitions. 
 
 I desire now, at this point, to invite attention to one of the larger 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LXX. 
 
 Screech Owl (Megascops asio). 
 Reduced. (From a photograph of a living specimen by the author.) 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LXXI. 
 
 Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus). 
 Greatly reduced. (Cat. No. 119367, U. S. N. M.) 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LXXII. 
 
 Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus). 
 Reduced. (Reproduction of a drawing from a photograph, of a living specimen.) 
 
fisport of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 PLATE LXXIII. 
 
 Baltimore Okiole (.Icterus galbula, $). 
 Somewhat reduced. (Cat. No. 103212, U. S. N. M.) 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 421 
 
 groups of mammals on exhibition at the Museum, and I will select that 
 magnificent piece of taxidermic work seen in the moose group. A 
 number of these massive cervidine animals have actually been mounted 
 with the most perfect surroundings of their natural habitat in one great 
 interesting collection, all under a single glass case. They are, probably 
 without exception, altogether the finest series of mounted moose in this 
 or any other country. 
 
 The act of the young buck riding down a sapling has been questioned 
 by some, but I believe that the practice of the animal to accomplish that 
 feat in order to reach the delicate foliage of the tree can be well sub- 
 stantiated. 
 
 Hornaday has said of this piece in his Taxidermy (pp. 246, 247) : 
 
 The setting represents a section of the moose woods of upper Canada, in which 
 the larger animals are browsing on the tender twigs of the white birch. The 
 animals have come together at the edge of a hog, which is growing full of a 
 gigantic species of grayish moss peculiar to that locality. The time represented is 
 the middle of autumn. The few leaves' that remain on the maple saplings have 
 been painted with October's most gorgeous tints of crimson and yellow, mixed 
 with green, and the leaves of the white birch have turned pale yellow. The ground 
 is plentifully strewn with leaves of bright tints, through which the green moss of 
 moist banks shows in patches here and there. 
 
 Of the animals, the three largest — and huge beasts they are, truly — are feeding 
 upon the birch twigs. A yearling calf is licking the head of a tiny brown-coated 
 younger brother, while a two-year- old bull is in the act of " riding down" a stout 
 birch sapling in order to get at the branches of its top, which would otherwise be 
 beyond his reach. 
 
 Three of these fine specimens were collected by Col. Cecil Clay, of 
 Washington, and by him presented to the Museum for this group, 
 together with the trees, moss, and other accessories, which he collected 
 with infinite labor and care in the moose woods. He also furnished us 
 with field notes and critical advice throughout, which had much to do 
 in making the group what it is — a monument to Col. Clay's skill and 
 prowess as a sportsman, and to his deep interest in A Ices malchis. It 
 is to be sincerely hoped that other sportsmen will follow the colonel's 
 admirable example, and aid the museums in which they are most inter- 
 ested to secure some attractive groups. There can be no doubt what- 
 ever as to the perfectness in which these animals are mounted and pre- 
 served, and they are apparently in their external forms very true to 
 nature. While we have the taxidermy of the Cervidse under consid- 
 eration, however, it would appear to be as well to refer to one great 
 common defect that we have frequently observed made by taxidermists 
 in them, and that is the lack of care that is sometimes evident in the 
 proper handling of the lacrymal depression in these animals, or in 
 other words, the pit which occurs in so many of them just anterior to 
 the distal cauthus of the eye. I have seen plenty of deer heads which, 
 from an artistic standpoint were otherwise very creditable pieces of 
 work, but in which this fossa had been almost or quite obliterated. It 
 
422 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 is to the strict attention to such anatomical details that very often the 
 success and reputation of a taxidermist depends, and he can do no 
 better than to see well to it that no such flaws creep into his perform- 
 ances. 
 
 This group of moose is about the only notable thing of the kind that 
 the National Museum has for the Cervidse at present, but this does 
 not mean to imply that a general poverty exists in so far as that fam- 
 ily is concerned. There are a goodly number of individual pieces of 
 deer, some of which, however, are deplorable-looking objects, and 
 fitting relics of those days when taxidermy had not reached to what it 
 can do so well in these times. Among the better specimens we observe 
 a fine piece in that representative of the antelope group known as 
 Thomson's Gazelle (Gazella thomsonii), Plate lxxviii. It has been 
 entered as No. 18964 of the collection of the Museum, and has been 
 recently described by Mr. True in his "An Annotated Catalogue of 
 the Animals Collected by Dr. W. L. Abbott in the Kilima-Njaro 
 Eegion, East Africa." (Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. v, xv, p. 473., PI. lxxvii, 
 1892). The faults in the mounting of this specimen are of so trivial a 
 nature that it is not worth my while to enumerate them here, and were 
 all the deer and their kin preserved as well as this specimen is, it would 
 be far more of a pleasure to the sensitive naturalist to gaze upon them, 
 who is now pardonably often shocked upon viewing some of his favor- 
 ites in the museum cases. 
 
 But to return to the groups, we have now to notice perhaps one of 
 the very finest accomplishments that the art of taxidermy has produced 
 in this country. I refer to the case containing the several specimens 
 of our now nearly extinct bison or American buffalo. This triumph 
 in the preservation of mammals of ponderous proportions is almost 
 entirely due to the consummate skill and perseverance of Hornaday, 
 who has popularly described it in many places. This latter fact, taken 
 in connection with the fine Plate (lxxix) I have been permitted to give 
 of it, renders it obviously unnecessary for me to dwell upon the general 
 appearance of this life-like herd of bovines. They are all true to the 
 life, preserved by all the most efficient methods of modern taxidermy, 
 and, what is not generally known by people who are, or have been, priv- 
 ileged to see this case, that the very sod upon which these animals now 
 stand was brought for the purpose all the way from Montana, beiug 
 shipped direct from the buffalo ranges of that territory to Washington. 
 This applies also to the sage-brush which is made to appear to be actu- 
 ally growing therein ; and the broom-sedge, and the cacti. The skulls 
 and other bones of the buffalo lying about were gathered in the same 
 place; indeed, as a whole, it is a strip of a Montana prairie of an old 
 range of these animals, picked up piecemeal, and now again unfolded 
 in the case at the Museum just as it occurred in nature. Even the very 
 buffalo tracks seen about the pool of water in the case were made by 
 using a real buffalo's hoof for the stamp to make the impressions. No 
 
Keportof National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LXXIV. 
 
'Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt 
 
 Plate LXXV. 
 
■Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LXXVI. 
 
 : *JSb 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892 — Shufeldt. 
 
 PLATE LXXVI (a). 
 
 
 ^ S3 
 
 3 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LXXVII. 
 
 Flying Lemue, oh Colcgo (Galeopithecus volans). 
 An example of bad taxidermy. (Cat. No. 3946, U. S. N. M.) 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 423 
 
 art known to me has ever accomplished a grander feat than this, and 
 it is as fully worthy of our unstinted admiration as is any form that has 
 ever materialized beneath the chisel of an Angelo or a Hiram Powers. 
 And were I to choose between being the author of Paul Potter's bull 
 and these buffalo, I should without a moment's hesitation decide in 
 favor of the latter. 
 
 They will be standing in as good order as they are at this writing 
 long after the former has faded away from off its canvas. 
 
 Many fine groups of mammals were by the National Museum sent on 
 to the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago to form a part of the 
 Smithsonian exhibit. Most of these were as fine things of the kind as 
 have ever been seen in this country, and the writer of this report en- 
 joyed the unusual privilege of seeing many of these in the course of 
 their mounting. This was accomplished by a corps of skillful work- 
 men, including such men as Mr. Joseph Palmer, William Palmer, George 
 Marshall, and others, the whole being under the direction of Mr. P. W. 
 True, curator of mammals. 
 
 It would be quite out of the question to even enumerate, not to say 
 describe, all of the groups or single pieces of mammals that now enrich 
 the collections of the U. S. National 'Museum. We can at the best put 
 in a word here and there about the most notable of them and the good 
 or bad points they offer us. Among those as yet unnoticed is the fine 
 case containing the three specimens of Ovibos moschatus, the musk oxen, 
 and I have heard various criticisms in regard to the forms that were 
 bestowed upon those animals by the taxidermist who preserved them. 
 Never having seen the animal alive, I hardly feel competent to judge in 
 the matter, but that the group is a most pleasing one there can be no 
 question. They are represented standing upon barren rock which has 
 recently been overlain by a light fall of snow. This last has been admi- 
 rably rendered by a composition compounded of starch, the pulp of white 
 blotting paper, and plaster-of-Paris — an invention of Mr. Joseph Pal- 
 mer's that has produced a very realistic effect. 
 
 Perhaps the best mounted specimen of a Musk Ox now extant is the 
 one in the possession of E. V. Skinner, esq., of the Canadian Pacific 
 Eailroad Company, and valued at $2,500. 
 
 Mr. Frederic S. Webster published an account of this animal in 
 Forest and Stream, of New York, in its issue of January 26, 1893, and 
 gave a figure of the Ox. Through the kindness of Mr. Skinner for the 
 waiving of copyright and loan of the electro of that figure we are 
 enabled to reproduce it here in Plate lxxx. Mr. Webster's article in 
 Forest and Stream was entitled " An Arctic Eover," and ran as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 The musk ox (Ovibos moschatne) is considered by naturalists one of the rarest of 
 our North American mammalia. In a clime of almost perpetual winter, within the 
 Arctic Circle, this animal lives and thrives. In a land which has been so fascina- 
 ting and so fatal to the many explorers who have sought to solve the myritcries of 
 
424 
 
 these desolate rocky ice-bound fields, in which no animal, it would seem, could 
 exist, the hardy musk ox roams at will during the entire year. The ability to 
 stand the rigors of such a climate is a striking feature of its interesting life history. 
 
 The musk ox is at present found only in the most northern parts of North America, 
 where it ranges in small bands on the barren grounds between the sixtieth parallel 
 and the shores of the Arctic Sea. Its southern range is gradually contracting, and 
 it is no longer met with west of the Mackenzie Eiver. It is found through the 
 Parry Islands and Grinnell Land to North Greenland, reaching on the west coast as 
 far south as Mellvile Bay. It was met with by all the polar exploring expeditions, 
 including the De Long, Hall, and Greely parties. Lieut. E. E. Peary in his late 
 Greenland journey secured several specimens of various ages, and reports it com- 
 paratively abundant. The German polar expedition of 1869-'70 found it at Sabine 
 Island on the east coast. In former times the musk ox roamed in other parts of the 
 world. Its fossil remains, or those of an allied species, have been found in northern 
 Siberia and the plains of Germany and France. It has also been found in the grave] 
 beds in several parts of England, as Bromley, Bath, and Freshfield, and also in the 
 brick earth of the Thames Valley at Crayford, Kent. 
 
 In size the musk ox equals the smaller varieties of Scotch and Welsh cattle, but 
 in structure and habits it is more like the sheep ; and the combination of character- 
 istics is well expressed by its generic name, Oviboe. It is gregarious in habit, going 
 in herds of 20 or 30 head, and sometimes 90 or 100 have been observed. The bands 
 contain one or two full-grown bulls. Notwithstanding their short legs, they run 
 with considerable speed. When frightened, they gather together like a flock of 
 sheep, and follow a leader as sheep do an old ram. This habit makes the total 
 extermination of a herd an easy task, when it is the desire of its destroyers to 
 accomplish it. When thoroughly alarmed they easily ascend precipitous slopes, 
 their curved, sharp-edged hoofs greatly aiding them in gaining a foothold. 
 
 The name of musk ox is given on account of the musky odor exhaled by the ani- 
 mal. The odor does not proceed from any special gland, as in the case of the musk 
 deer and other animals which secrete a musky odor. The cause of this peculiar odor 
 has not been satisfactorily explained. 
 
 According to Sir John Richardson, " when the animal is fat its flesh is well tasted 
 and resembles that of caribou, but has a coarser grain." According to other author- 
 ities the flesh of the bulls is highly flavored, and both bulls and cows, when lean 
 smell strongly of musk. This odor does not seem to beconfined to either sex, or to 
 any particular season of the year. At times the flesh of some of the animals is said 
 to be tender and very well flavored. 
 
 The carcass of a good-sized male will weigh 300 to 350 pounds. In summer they 
 accumulate considerable fat, and during winter use up this fatty tissue. The males 
 are considerably larger than the females. The cows calve about June 1, giving 
 birth to one young one. The animal is also known as musk buffalo and musk sheep, 
 both very expressive names. 
 
 The animal has si very prominent tendency to a hump. The dorsal processes of 
 the vertebral column, as shown in the skeleton, indicate this. The dense, long, and 
 somewhat stiff bunch of hair over the shoulders plainly proves that the animal pos- 
 sesses a hump. All specimens which have been heretofore mounted do not show this 
 feature of the animal. The head is large and broad. The horns in the old males 
 are extremely broad at the base, meeting in the median line and covering the whole 
 top of the head. They are directed, at first,' slightly outward, and then suddenly 
 downward by the side of the head^ and then they turn upward with a graceful curve, 
 and forward, ending in the same plane as the eye. The horns at the base are rough, 
 but gradually grow smooth from the center to the tips, which are round, glossy, and 
 black. At the base they are a dull white. The horns of the females are much 
 smaller, and at their base the space between them is much broader in the middle of 
 the forehead. The ears are small and are concealed in the hair. The space between 
 the nostrils and the upper lip is covered with » short, close hair, as in goats and 
 
Report of National Museum, 1 892.— Shufeldt 
 
 Plate LXXVIII. 
 
 55 
 
 pa "^ 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LXXIX. 
 
 a 
 
 S5 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LXXX. 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LXXXI. 
 
 ■g " 
 
 s 
 
 ■& s 
 
 K ^ 
 
 o « 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 425 
 
 sheep, and Las no trace of the bare "muffle" of oxen. The general color of the 
 hair is a rich brown, shading into black. It is long, matted, and rather curly at the 
 neck and shoulders. On the back and hips the hair is long and straight, on the sides 
 of the body exceedingly long, so long as to hang below the middle of the legs. In 
 some specimens which we have measured the longest hairs have been 2D inches long. 
 In the center of the back there is a patch of soiled brownish white, termed the 
 saddle. 
 
 TheTe is a closely-matted short under wool, exceedingly soft and fine of texture, 
 and so dense that it is impervious to snow and rain. On the chest the hair is long 
 and straight, and hangs down gracefully like fringe. The tail is short and hidden 
 in the long hair on the hips. On the legs the hair is short, stiff, and without any 
 underwool. The hoofs are much curved and larger than those of the caribou, which 
 they resemble in shape, and the eye of a skilled hunter would be taxed to detect the 
 difference between the tracks of the two species in the snow. The bones of the ani- 
 mal are very dense; those of the legs have the weight and appearance of ivory. 
 
 The food of the musk ox is similar to that of the caribou, and consists of grass at 
 one season and lichen at another. The curved-hoofs enable the animal to scrape away 
 the deep snows which cover their scanty food. Their sense of smell is very acute. 
 The illustration of the musk ox here given represents the character of the animal. 
 The specimen from which it is taken is the largest in this country or Europe. The 
 skin of this specimen was obtained by E. V. Skinner, esq., of the Canadian Pacific 
 Railroad, and placed in- the hands of Messrs. Sowdon and Webster, of 14 East Forty- 
 second street, this city, who have prepared it, as faithfully represented by the plate. 
 Through the kindness and by the permission of Mr. Skinner we have the pleasure 
 of placing before our readers this handsome likeness. 
 
 This specimen was sledded by natives over 1,400 miles near Fort Franklin, and was 
 received here in fine condition. The order for it was given three years since and 
 the specimen has been in transit most of this time. The few measurements may 
 serve to impress the reader with the proportions of this particular specimen. The 
 animal stands at the shoulder 4 feet 5 inches; the length from nose to stern is 6 feet 
 7 inches; height at the rump, 3 feet 10 inches; length of head from base of skull to 
 end of nose, 24 inches ; length of horn from median line, following the outside curve 
 to tip, 24 inches; width of both horns at base, 12 inches; diameter of horns at base, 
 9Jincb.es; breadth of muzzle, 4f inches; circumference of muzzle, 14 inches; cir- 
 cumference of hoof of front leg, 17 inches; circumference of hoof of hind leg, 13 
 inches. 
 
 There are but four other mounted specimens of the musk ox in this country. One 
 ■ is at Harvard College, Cambridge, Mass., and three compose a group at the U. S. 
 National Museum, Washington, D. C. Of these, one is a male, one a female, and one 
 a two-year-old, none of them superior specimens. 
 
 Amou g the mounted species of the Equidce at the National Museum none 
 can, in niy estimation, in any way approach the specimen of Burchell's 
 zebra (Plate lxxxi). The animal has been given an attitude indicative 
 of moderate movement, with the evident idea in its mind of making an 
 attack or standing at bay, in which he will use his teeth to bite — a 
 habit so familiar to us in some cases of vicious horses. The short mane 
 is seinierect, the ears are thrown back, the eye looks the owner's intent, 
 while the quivering and nearly rigid lips drawn apart show the glisten- 
 ing upper " nippers" and the crowns of the lower ones; the nostrils are 
 somewhat closed by the elevation of the superior lip ; finally, the entire 
 rendering of the whole animal is most perfect in all particulars. I am 
 enabled to present herewith the left lateral view of the head of this 
 zebra, so its excellence may be the better appreciated. 
 
426 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 But the climax of the taxidermist's ambition is reached when he can 
 mount a hairless mammal, large or small, that is at once a perfect 
 reproduction of the original, and will keep indefinitely uninjured by 
 the ordinary ravages of time and pests. Of this kind of work the 
 Museum has several notable examples, and none of these can exceed in 
 beauty of design, and consummate skill and knowledge in workmanship 
 thenowfamous African elephant "Mungo"(PlateLXXXii). Chief among 
 the factors of success in mounting an. animal of this kind is the fact 
 that the skin is laid over a thick coat of clay, which latter overspreads 
 the manikin. Through this ingenious device, after the skin is on and 
 the taxidermist essays to model the form to copy the live animal in 
 every particular, it is seen that all the depressions, wrinkles, lines, and 
 pits, and protuberances can be exactly reproduced by the proper sim- 
 ple instruments by working them oh the skin through the agency of 
 the yielding clay beneath it. 1 have compared most critically this 
 specimen "Mungo" with photographs of living elephants in my collec- 
 tion, and find that in each and every particular it is anatomically cor- 
 rect, and that the attitude is most perfect. Another piece which shows 
 equally well the master hand is the specimen of the hairless Mexican 
 ■terrier (Plate xc).~ This dog had no hair at all apparently, and his 
 skin was as thin as ordinary writing paper, but through the aid of a 
 plaster cast of his entire body as a model and the use of the clay- 
 covered manikin, a most remarkably fine thing has been produced. 
 This specimen has also been delicately tinted where it became necessary, 
 and as now preserved will last without change for an indefinite length 
 of years. Hornaday mounted both "Mungo" and this terrier. The first 
 received the silver specialty medal awarded " for the best piece in entire 
 exhibition " at the New York exhibition of the Society of American 
 Taxidermists in 1883, which prize was nearly wrested from it by the 
 judges and given to the terrier, which had been entered in competition 
 against it. This process of using clay has also been employed by its 
 introducer in mountiug the bison, polar bear, Burchell's zebra, the 
 tiger, and the puma, figures of each of which illustrate this reaper and 
 are the work of the same illustrious taxidermist. 
 
 Speaking of comparing " Mungo " with photographs of living ele- 
 phants brings up the use of the camera again as applied to mammals. 
 Now, I entirely dissent from Mr. Hornaday's opinion as to the necessity 
 of taking photographs of all the mammals we can. I believe in photo- 
 graphing them in all positions, every possible species, wild and domes- 
 ticated, living and dead. In his Taxidermy (pp. 21, 22) he remarks : 
 
 To the taxidermist and collector, photographs of dead animals are of very little 
 value, unless it be a large picture of the head of a large specimen, such as a 
 moose, but that photographs of live animals, taken " broadside on," as the sailors 
 say, are extremely valuable aids in mounting; but these you get only in the zoolog- 
 ical gardens. I never took a camera into the field with me, and have always been 
 glad of it, for it would not have repaid the trouble it would have involved. 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 PLATE LXXXII. 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LXXXIII. 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892. — Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LXXXIV. 
 
 Jack Rabbit {Lepus callotis callotis, $). 
 (From a photograph hy Dr. R. W. Shufeldt.) 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 427 
 
 When a person writes in such a strain as this I am convinced he has 
 Hot made himself master of the instrument, and knows but very little 
 about its capabilities. Why, even my very earliest attempts in this 
 line, in the photography of living and dead mammals in the field, I still 
 claim are of some use, while others of them are highly suggestive. Take 
 the Gynomys or Prairie dog, shown in Plate lxxxiii, Figs. 1 and 2. I 
 made that photograph while the animal stood at the very entrance of his 
 barrow. It was in New Mexico. The relative position of the eye, the 
 ear, and the nose are well shown in Fig. 1, while the prominent cheeks 
 are clearly defined in Fig. 2. Whoever it was that mounted the group 
 of these animals at the National Museum I do not now just remember. It 
 may have been Mr. Hornaday, but whoever -it was he did not appreci- 
 ate this prominence of the cheeks iu Gynomys, and I must believe that 
 such a figure as here given would have enlightened him on the subject. 
 
 There is another structure that I have noticed that is rarely well 
 preserved, and that is the ears of large hares. These appendages, as 
 I have studied them in most museum specimens of Lepus, always to me 
 appear to be more or less shrunken. This especially applies to the ears 
 of the American Jackass Rabbits (Plate lxxxiv), and the proper preser- 
 vation of the form, size, and coloration of these is, of course, very impor- 
 tant. All these particulars are well shown in the plate, although it is 
 only a dead animal, it being a photograph I made of one of those hares 
 immediately after I shot it. Another example of the kind is seen in my 
 photograph of a dead Badger (Plate lxxxviii). The attitude here shown 
 corresponds exactly with one which, among others, it assumes while in 
 the act of burrowing, and many a person whom 1 have shown this 
 picture has been deceived by it to the extent of mistaking it for a live 
 specimen. It gives a first-rate idea of the form of the badger's head, 
 position of ears, etc. Had a full series of even such photographs as 
 these been available, or had it been possible for the explorers in foreign 
 climes to have taken with them one of the many highly convenient forms 
 of cameras now manufactured, and used it intelligently, I am quite 
 confident that, had the older taxidermists the ability to avail themselves 
 of the pictures obtained in this way, we should not have had so many 
 abominable things to look at in the cases of our 'museums, and be told 
 on the labels that this represented that animal, and that this, and so 
 on. Things, for example, like the flying lemur, shown in Plate lxxvii. 
 Horrid is not the name for such woi'k as it represents, and it is a pity 
 that that taxidermist did not have a good photograph of the head of a 
 Galeojaithecus, living or dead, when he started in on the specimen. 
 Apart from the head, we see feet that seize nothing, shriveled ears, 
 protruding wires, distorted form — and those eyes ! 
 
 There is still another class of cases wherein the camera can be made 
 to do great service, and this is where we meet with an animal given to 
 building for its home a large and cumbersome nest, such as is seen in 
 the Neotoma group in the collection. With the enterprise now exhibited 
 
428 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 upon the part of museum collectors and taxidermists, the feat of trans- 
 porting such a structure from the wilds of the Southwest to the mammal 
 hall of the National Museum would be considered perfectly feasible. 
 But before disturbing such a nest in any way where the rats had orig- 
 inally built it, it would most assuredly be the thing to do to make a 
 good photograph of it, so that, in the event of having to restore or 
 arrange parts of it after its transportation and arrival, we would have 
 the photograph as a model, and the best that could be procured. In- 
 deed, with the material at hand the entire nest could be again rebuilt 
 by it, as for the matter of that. 
 
 From the standpoint of the introduction of groups of mammals, 
 illustrating habits, etc., such a nest as this presents the problem of 
 devoting a large piece of valuable space to a very small animal. But 
 we contend here, most emphatically, that the lesson it teaches is fully 
 worthy of it, and these are the very kinds of objects that we should 
 devote our very best pains to introduce, with a strict fidelity to nature, 
 into our zoological museums. I would go farther; I would go to the 
 extent of giving many square feet of museum space, and faithfully 
 illustrate in the very best possible manner, a group of beavers and the 
 dam they build. These animals are now being rapidly exterminated 
 in our country, and ere they are gone entirely it is surely our bounden 
 duty to entertain such an idea with the view of carrying it out. Typ- 
 ical beaver dams are quite as scarce as the builders of them, but one 
 should be sought at an early date, photographed from various points 
 of view, and, cost what it may, reproduced at the National Museum. 
 
 Few, at the best, realize how rapidly many of our mammals in this 
 country are being forever swept away. We are fortunate at the 
 National Museum in having preserved, in the very best manner, a num- 
 ber of them, but there yet remain a great many more demanding our 
 attention, and, in some cases, our immediate attention. It is the Gov- 
 ernment's first duty to see to this matter, and Government aid should 
 not be withheld for a moment where such enterprises are on foot, but 
 should, on the contrary, not only propose them, but encourage the under- 
 taking iu every possible way. I have always entertained the idea that 
 the education of the people of any country is one of the best, if not 
 the best investment that that country can make, and surely none of 
 us will question but what zoological and other museums are great 
 educators. We stand very much in need of a zoological museum in 
 connection with our other Government museums, one large building 
 devoted exclusively to everything in the animal series below man. 
 We have no such building at present. We have been very generous 
 to ourselves in these matters on a number of occasions in the past, but 
 the income from it has well repaid us each time, and the benefit there- 
 from as a whole is simply incalculable. The time is near at hand again 
 when we should think of repeating one of those wise acts, one of those 
 well-put investments. 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LXXXV. 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDEEMY FOR MUSEUMS. 429 
 
 There is another, and now exceedingly rare animal, it being on the 
 very verge of extinction, which our museum is exceptionally fortunate 
 in obtaining a specimen, before the destructive and thoughtless hand of 
 man eliminated it entirely. I refer to the walrus. This animal's status 
 is now pretty well known to the reading public, through the publications 
 of the National Museum, those of Mr. H. W. Elliot, of William Palmer, 
 and the daily press incidentally to the general question of the seal-fish- 
 ery problem. The Museum walrus was mounted iu the light of all the 
 improvements and skill modern taxidermy could bring to bear upon 
 the undertaking, and the success was complete. It constituted when 
 finished one of the grandest subjects the Smithsonian sent on to the 
 Government exhibit at the Columbian Exposition, where at the pres- 
 ent writing it is. On Plates lxxxvi, Figs. 1 and 2, and lxxxvii I am 
 permitted to give a series of figures from photographs taken at various 
 times during the preservation of this colossal mammal. These so 
 clearly represent what I intend they should that special explanation of 
 any one of them becomes unnecessary. The series are destined to be 
 illustrations of the very highest interest for ages to come, and ere 
 another century rolls by, people will regard them with wonder, and 
 that men actually preserved such a brute, in the flesh, will read far 
 more like fiction than a reality. At a far remote period it will be 
 classed with such ideal scenes as prehistoric man engaged in slaying a 
 mammoth or rudely carving upon the tusks of one. 
 
 Some of the seals and other marine mammals in the Museum are very 
 fine in every particular, while, on the other hand, some of them sadly 
 need reduplicating, as they, too, are soon to be exterminated. This 
 applies also to the bears, of which there are some very handsome repre- 
 sentatives, but none more so than the Polar Bear (Plate lxxxv), of 
 which there is not a finer mounted specimen in the world. He is rep- 
 resented as walking up an ice floe at a slight incline, and from the free 
 upper margins of which hang many icicles. Ice is often wonderfully 
 well counterfeited by using a moderate coat of paraffin over sheet glass, 
 or even wood, and we gain the proper effect through its transparency. 
 The icicles are of glass, of course, and made especially for the purpose, 
 while the tout ensemble of the effect is perfect. 
 
 When another commodious zoological building is added to the pres- 
 ent group of Government institutions, I am of the opinion that the 
 correct idea is to not only show groups of animals composed of one 
 species, but to a certain extent faunal groups, wherein can be worked 
 with the greatest advantage many other natural productions of the 
 country where the animals occur, as plants, topography, etc. Now 
 these large groups, if arranged round the wall space, with a varying 
 depth of 5 to 25 feet, may in some cases be made to advantageously 
 merge into each other— that is, to a certain extent, show regional groups 
 and their mergences. For instance, one large case might be con- 
 
430 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 structed to represent au arctic realm, carried down in the foreground 
 and to one side to the seashore, and upon another rocks, glacial ice, 
 sheet ice, and what not, as representing the higber land. Then the 
 foreground should be merged with the background by a skillful artist, 
 so as to carry with it great depth, and offer the opportunity to show 
 peculiarities of a sky perhaps, and the effect of distance, as well as to 
 add other accessories, as a distant shore covered with seals, or, higher 
 up, a herd of caribou. Such a case could be made to contain an entire 
 marine mammalian fauna, and be made far more instructive and impos- 
 ing than single specimens uncomfortably huddled or scattered through 
 the various cases, absolutely ignoring any zoological arrangement. 
 
 We have the power and the understanding now to carry out such 
 bold designs, and it is high time that we were about it. The whole 
 tendency is in just such directions, and all it requires is skillful hand- 
 ling. What an object lesson or lessons such groups would be, and this 
 broad and deep country of ours, including every kind of a fauna and 
 flora from Alaska to Florida, thriving in every variety of climate, 
 includes the very series of zones, realms, and areas that should by just 
 such means be illustrated. It would represent ideas and groups of 
 ideas, and ideas are what we want. It would powerfully illustrate 
 literature as the biologist now makes it for us, and in an orderly man- 
 ner show our people what we mean by fauual areas, Arctic realms, 
 geographical ranges, variations of animals under varying conditions of 
 altitude, desert areas, and shore lines. Museums, among other things, 
 are made to educate the people of a nation; but a favored few of the 
 people can study such things in nature. So it is the business of the 
 museum to bring whole living sections of nature within its walls, where 
 it can be studied and where books and labels are displayed in abun- 
 dance to help show how it ought to be studied. 
 
 When we can make such animals and groups of animals as those 
 shown in Plates lxxxix, or lxxix, or lxxxi, there'can be no question in 
 the world but what the more extensive groups can be combined with 
 more telling effect. But to be successful in the highest sense of the 
 word there must be no cheap designers, cheap modelers, cheap artists, 
 or cheap anything employed; all must be of the very best that the 
 United States affords — and we have it in both talent and material. 
 Especially for the painted backgrounds should an artist of the very 
 highest ability be employed, with a staff of others to assist in the intro- 
 duction of distant animals, forests, or marine effects. If refinement, 
 knowledge, science, and art are wholesomely combined in such efforts 
 there is not one bit of danger of either producing a cheap museum 
 effect, much less anything that savors of the scenery of the theatrical 
 stage, hi one sense it would be far more economical, in the same pro- 
 portion that it is far more so to make one large case of animals than it 
 is to build up six or eight small ones. 
 
 Then the space throughout the Museum halls, apart from the regional 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufetdt. 
 
 Plate LXXXVI. 
 
 Fig. 1. Manikin for a Walrus. 
 (Partly completed.) 
 
 Fig. 2. Walrus (Odobcenus obesus, d). 
 Nearly completed. (Cat. No. 19245, U. S. N. M.) 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate LXXXVII. 
 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 431 
 
 groups occupying the walls, could be advantageously devoted to cases 
 of the smaller species groups, single pieces, and other specimens. 
 
 Coming to the Felidce hi the collection of the Museum we find it repre- 
 sented by specimens similar to those in the other groups, in other words 
 by the good, by the bad, and by the indifferent, and these are the most 
 undoubted examples of every genus of this provisional classification. 
 We see a specimen of the last-mentioned kind in the lynx shown in 
 Plate xc, wherein faults about the mouth, slightly wrinkled ears, and 
 some minor points debar it from the category of the best specimens of 
 taxidermy. While on the other hand the grand specimen of a tiger, 
 the head and fore part of which is given in Plate xci, has not its peer for 
 that species in any public museum in the United States. The Puma 
 is also another admirable preserved specimen of this group. 
 
 Of this group Hornaday has said that the "large Felidce (tiger, lion, 
 leopard, etc.; are the finest subjects for the taxidermist that the whole 
 animal kingdom can produce. They offer the finest opportunities 
 for the development of muscular anatomy, and the expression of the 
 various higher passions." (Taxidermy, p. 171.) This may be very true, 
 but in my opinion the pieces left by this talented artist to commemorate 
 his name after his connection with the Museum was severed, and the 
 ones which will most surely pass his name down into history as a most 
 masterly taxidermist of his time, are the group of American bison, and 
 "Mungo" the African elephant, though his 'Bengal tiger, to gain a sim- 
 ilar place, be stepping in the very footprints of the latter as he leaves 
 them. 
 
 One who has not seen the feat performed in one of our larger museums 
 can have but little conception of the skill required in handling the 
 facial expression and all the structures that enter into the mouth parts. 
 The skinning of a tiger's tongue and preserving it so as to make that 
 organ resemble the original as it appeared in the living subject; the 
 cleaning of the teeth; the blending of the black part of the lips with 
 the delicate pink gums inside; to make the animal grin and not smile, 
 and to lend to the eyes the flash of anger, are all accomplishments that 
 demand of the artist his best judgment, knowledge, skill, and, what is 
 more, his infinite patience. 
 
 I agree with him when he says: 
 
 Some of the old -fashioned taxi'derniists have the habit of smearing a lot of nasty 
 lampblack in the eyes of every mounted mammal [and a variety of birds, too], for 
 what purpose no one kno-ws, but possibly in imitation of actresses, some of whom 
 have the same unaccountable trick, and a hideous one in its results in both cases. 
 There is only one point in its favor: it is the easiest way in the world to give an 
 animal a black eye. (IMd., pp. 177, 178.) 
 
 Many groups of monkeys and the higher apes now adorn the. cases 
 in the mammal department of the U. S. National Museum. Some of 
 these are among the best groups of the kind in the hands of the insti- 
 tution. Among them is the now famous group of Orangutans, too 
 
432 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 well known to require description in this place; and there are others of 
 equal beauty and interest. 
 
 Of recent years a great deal of well-directed energy and skill has 
 been brought to bear to reproduce various races of men, and .these 
 attired in their native costumes and represented in the pursuit of 
 various employments. They are, as a rule, the size of life, and so real 
 in the majority of instances as to excite the wonder and admiration of 
 all who chance to behold them for the first time. But this subject has 
 been found too extensive to handle in the present connection, and it 
 will no doubt furnish the material for another writer at some time in 
 the near future. If ever the Museum indulge in the mounting of such 
 groups, the propriety of which seems to be questionable, as Jules Ver- 
 reaux's "Arab courier attacked by lions," or John Wallace's famous 
 "Horseman attacked by tigers," and similar efforts, why this would 
 appear to be the more proper place for them, rather than any depart- 
 ment of zoology. If not showing too much or great activity, or other 
 wise not too sensational, some such compositions are quite instructive, 
 and to the public always interesting. 
 
 So far as I am aware at present, the Museum has never undertaken 
 to preserve man, by any other process than the ones now employed, of 
 clothed manikins, the faces and heads being obtained by casts or other 
 means. That the direct preservation of man's body intact has been 
 elsewhere attempted, however, there can be no doubt, and with some 
 measure of success. On page 14 of Oapt. Brown's little work on 
 taxidermy, I read : 
 
 Numerous have been the attempts of mankind to preserve the skin of their fellow- 
 creatures. The very best of these have been most disgusting deformities, and so 
 totally unlike the " human form divine " that none of them ha»ve found a place in 
 collections, with the exception of some parts of man, which form part of the Euro- 
 pean anatomical collections. In the museum of the Jardiu du Roi, at Paris, there is 
 one of the best things of this kind which we have seen, a human head injected and pre- 
 served in spirits of turpentine. This curious preparation was the production of Rintch, 
 a Dutch physician, highly celebrated for his pathological skill. The precise manner 
 this interesting preparation was originally preserved is not known. However, it 
 retains to the present day, all the original and natural colors. In winter, the cold 
 affects the spirit so much, in which it is preserved, that the head can not be distin- 
 guished, until the return of warm weather, which dispels its cloudy appearance The 
 New Zealanders have a method of drying and preserving the heads of their chiefs, 
 with the flesh entire. Many of these are to be found in museums; but they are of 
 little use, and by no means calculated to produce pleasurable sensations. 
 
 We may safely predict that no method will ever be discovered, by which man can 
 be preserved so as to be fit for placing in a museum. (1870.) 
 
 Could Capt. Brown but see the host of thoroughly lifelike Indians, 
 Africans, Japanese, Sainoau, Aino, Esquimau, and Caucasian figures, 
 of all ages, and both sexes, that Prof. O. T. Mason now marshals in his 
 department, he could have but one opinion about it, and that is that 
 the necessity therefor had gone by. 
 
 As I closed upon, a former page of this paper what I had to say 
 about the taxidermy of birds, I passed a few brief remarks upon the 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufek 
 
 Plate LXXXVIII. 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892,-Shufeldt 
 
 Plate LXXXIX. 
 
■Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufsldt. 
 
 Plate XC. 
 
 Fig. 1. Hairless Mexican Terrier. 
 (Cat. No. 116718, U. S. N. M.) 
 
 Fig. 2. Lynx (Lynx rufvs). 
 
Report of National Museum, I892.—Shufeldt. 
 
 Plate XCI. 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDEKMY FOR MUSEUMS. 433 
 
 hall in which their cases were exhibited. In this particular the mam- 
 mal department is far better off. It being in the National Museum 
 building proper, a comparatively more modern structure, it is both 
 well lighted and well ventilated. The casings are of the most recent 
 improved kinds, and set off their subjects very satisfactorily. An 
 object of great interest, and suspended from the roof, is the vertical 
 mid-section of a hollow papier mache whale, into which has been 
 placed a skeleton of the same species in situ. It renders a fine idea of 
 the position of the osseous framework of this huge marine mammal. 
 
 CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 In writing out the account of my observations and in giving my opin- 
 ions for this report on the present status of the art of taxidermy, and 
 what may be hoped for it in the future, I have been very largely influ- 
 enced by what I have seen and been enabled to study in the collections 
 of the U. S. National Museum and Smithsonian Institution at Wash- 
 ington, D. 0. When my labors were first undertaken it was the inten- 
 tion to incorporate herein descriptions of methods and work, with the 
 appropriate plates illustrating it, of many other museums, both here 
 and in Europe. In some few instances this has been accomplished, while 
 from one reason or another it has failed in others. Often institutions 
 of the kind we speak are more or less sensitive on the point of submit- 
 ting their work for an impartial criticism, and so withheld it; while in 
 others such a very large proportion of the work was so far below the 
 standard of what taxidermy ought to be in these days, that for very 
 obvious reasons it has been placed aside without notice. Looking 
 broadly over the field and taking the subject as a whole, I am of the 
 opinion that there is, even in many of our first-class museums, very 
 wide room for improvement in such matters. My aim has been through- 
 out this entiie paper to accord full praise where it appeared to be justly 
 merited, and in those cases where the work was below what it ought 
 to be I have endeavored to keep myself above mere fault-finding by 
 simply indicating the only too apparent errors. We are to be congrat- 
 ulated that the art is making such very satisfactory progress among: 
 us, and that at the present writing, in our most advanced institutions,^ 
 Government and otherwise, there is to be found so much to be praised' 
 and recommended and so little to' be condemned'. 
 
 Much might be said here on the subject of suitable museums fbr the 
 exhibition of scientific collections of preserved animals, but this phase 
 af.theqnestibn will be, as has been said, dealt with in another place: 
 Beit' enough. to. say here in passing that our Government museums, 
 areas yet very faulty in this particular and far behind some of the 
 better institutions in, for example, England and elsewhere. The old 
 ornithological hall in the Smithsonian building is already crowded to 
 overflowing, and is at the best but illy suited, for the purpose, a large 
 H,Mis. 114, pt. 2 28. 
 
434 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 proportion of the recesses being so very dark that the specimens can 
 not be properly seen, much less studied. The National Museum build- 
 ing is better fitted for the exhibition of ethnological and other material 
 than it is for zoological. We stand in need, very much in need, of 
 a scientifically constructed zoological museum, for, in the first place, 
 to properly exhibit the superb collections that have within compara- 
 tively recent times grown up here, and, second, to relieve the buildings 
 already in use. As the British Museum threw off its South Kensington 
 Department of Natural History, so has, and from like causes, the time 
 come for us to make a similar step. 
 
 I have called attention to the fact that taxidermists should be thor- 
 oughly educated men, fully trained in all the technique of their art in 
 its broadest sense, as pointed out in the body of the paper; that with 
 respect to the art itself, the main factors of success to be observed are 
 the using of every means at our command to reproduce nature in 
 every particular, not only in the case of the specimens themselves, but 
 in the accessories used in connection with them; that they should be so 
 prepared as to resist in every way the ravages of time, or the attacks 
 of pests; that they should, in addition, not only show the appearance 
 of the animal itself, but aim to give a chapter in its life history, drawing 
 therefor either upon its habits or its habitat; that everything that in 
 any way whatever partaking of the grotesque or fanciful or extravagant 
 innovations should be promptly and forever discountenanced. 
 
 My studies have led me to believe that the art of taxidermy has had 
 a singular evolutionary growth peculiarly its own, the various phases 
 of which have, in one place or another, been pointed out in the forego- 
 ing pages, and that of recent years the strong tendency in our leading 
 museums has been to group animals, and for a variety of purposes. I 
 am convinced that in the future museums will carry this idea still fur- 
 ther, and that these groups will be so combined as not only to exhibit 
 single species, showing some of their habits and surrounding in their 
 natural haunts, but also to a very large extent to show faunal regions, 
 and the animal and plant life of various geographical areas. When thus 
 presented in the museums of large cities, and showing in that way the 
 distribution of the animal and plant life of the region wherein the par^ 
 ticular city may be situated, or for the country at large in our Govern- 
 ment museums, the ever-present lesson they will present for study to 
 the thousands of men, women, and children who may see such an exhi- 
 bition during the course of a year will in its practicable value be sim- 
 ply beyond all calculation. By such arrangements the eye will be 
 enabled to take in and the mind appreciate the aspect and the biologic 
 forms' of any particular region of the United States almost at a glance. 
 
 For the sake of economy, both for the present and the future, we should 
 employ only the very best materials in - our work, and, what is quite as 
 important, secure the services of only the most skillful and advanced 
 artists in the country. Not mere plodders for pay, but men thoroughly 
 
SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOE MUSEUMS. 435 
 
 in love with their work and possessing talents fully capable of improve- 
 ment and desirous of seizing upon each and every advance made in 
 the art. To this end, whenever proper opportunity offers, facilities to 
 inform themselves in all that directly relates to their work should be 
 extended to them. 
 
 In closing, I but acquit myself of a duty and a pleasure at once 
 when I extend my thanks to Prof. G. Brown Goode, long in charge 
 of the National Museum, not only for the advantages that have come 
 to me in the way of studying the material for this paper but for the 
 pleasure it has been for me to write it, and for the many courtesies I 
 have received at his hands. 
 
 To Mr. F. W. True I am especially indebted for the assistance hehas 
 so freely given me upon every occasion: As the curatorin-charge of 
 the Museum, it has lain within his power to further my labors in numer- 
 ous ways, and this throughout has been done with such marked kind- 
 ness, promptitude, and cheerfulness that I find it difficult for me to ex- 
 press to him the gratitude 1 experience for it and so thoroughly feel. 
 
 My own work will have been amply repaid if it result in the further 
 encouragement and stimulation of the progress of the art of taxidermy, 
 now so firmly placed on foot in so many quarters of the civilized world. 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 After the manuscript of this paper had been completed, and had 
 been transmitted to the Museum for publication, there were Teceived 
 for incorporation in it, through the kindness of Dr. J. A. Allen, of the 
 American Museum of Natural History, New York City, five photo- 
 graphs for plates. These photographs represent groups in the collec- 
 tions of the American Museum of Natural History, in which institu- 
 tion Dr. Allen has charge of the departments of ornithology and mam- 
 malogy. They came too late to be inserted in the body of this paper, 
 but owing to their general excellence and interest, and to the great 
 courtesy of their sender in submitting them, as well as to the trouble 
 which he had taken to write out their histories, it was decided to have 
 them engraved and placed together at the end of the paper. The first 
 of these added plates (Plate xcn) represents a group of Pied Ducks 
 (Gamptolaimus labradorius) which were designed and prepared by 
 Jenness Eichardson in 1889 at the American Museum of Natural His- 
 tory. The birds were mounted by Mr. H. C. Denslow. 
 
 The group which is represented in the second plate of this series 
 (Plate xcm) is a more or less elaborate piece of work, also designed and 
 prepared by Mr. Eichardson at the American Museum of Natural His- 
 tory in 1886. It represents very faithfully the side elevation of a bank, 
 part way down in which a pair of Louisiana water thrushes (Siurus 
 
436 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 
 
 motacilla) have built their nest. The male and female birds are seen 
 approaching it, as they leisurely hop along the roots and twigs of 
 plants which protrude from the side of the bank. 
 
 Of all the specimens on exhibition in the collections of the American 
 Museum, none have a greater attraction for the observer and visitor 
 there than the admirable series of bird groups, and one of the most 
 life-like of these is the beautiful subject of the third plate in this series 
 (Plate xciv). It represents a pair of robins (Merula migratoria) with 
 their nest in an apple tree,, the latter being in full bloom of early sum- 
 mer. 
 
 The fourth plate in the supplemental series (Plate xcv) represents a 
 group of opossums (Didelphis virginiana), male, female, and a number 
 of young ones. In many respects it resembles the similar groups of 
 these animals which are to be seen in the U. S. National Museum, and 
 which have been described in the body of this paper. The group rep- 
 resented in this plate was prepared and designed by Mr. Jenness .Rich- 
 ardson at the American Museum of Natural History in 1891. It is an 
 especially fine piece of work, and although it does not contain as many 
 specimens as the National Museum group, it is hardly the less instruc- 
 tive on that account. 
 
 In so far as the larger mammals are concerned, there is probably not 
 a piece in the entire collection of the American Museum of Natural 
 History that can in any particular compare with the superb specimen of 
 the huge pachyderm shown in Plate xcvi. It is the Indian rhinoceros 
 "Bombi" {Rhinoceros unicornis L.). This specimen was mounted at the 
 American Museum of Natural History in 1890 by Mr. Eichardson and 
 his assistants. The data for the work consisted in measurements taken 
 from the animal when alive, and also from a photograph obtained at 
 the same time. After having been mounted, it was properly colored 
 after a living specimen in the Zoological Gardens of Philadelphia. It 
 is probably one of the best mounted specimens of this species in the 
 United States. 
 
Report of National Museum, 1 892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 PLATE XCII. 
 
 ■c X 
 
 o a 
 
 a < 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shufeldt. 
 
 PLATE XCIII. 
 
 
 — '•■•.-■■'■ . . . i — 
 
 A Pair or Louisiana Water Thrushes (Siurus motacilla) and Nest. 
 (From a group in the American Museum o£ Natural History, New York City.) 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892. — Shufeldt, 
 
 Plate XCIV. 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892.— Shutcldt. 
 
 Plate XCV. 
 
 Group of Opossums. 
 (From an electrotype lent by the American Museum of Natural History, New York City.) 
 
Report of National Museum, 1892 Shufeldt. 
 
 PLATE XCVI. 
 
 

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 Library Bureau Cat. No. 1137