iv NATURAL SCIENCE. 



August, 1804. 



bird-groups our home museums do not require much teaching, though 

 even they have yet to iearn that a bird can be mounted in the most 

 natural manner on an ordinary museum-perch or stand. It is in 

 preparing the other classes of Vertebrata and the Invertebrata that 

 American taxidermists take the lead, and it is their excellence in this 

 direction that we have endeavoured to set forth as an example. We 

 cannot, however, go so far with Dr. Shufeldt as to look forward to a 

 time when museums shall display in monster cases, picturesquely 

 arranged, the faunas of entire regions or the animal and plant life of 

 various geographical areas. Such a method of exhibition leads, almost 

 certainly, to hopeless incongruities, and prevents a proper inspection 

 of the specimens exhibited. The scene-painter must not interfere 

 with the scientist, A museum is a palace of truth before it is a palace 

 of art. 



It is particularly interesting to note the enormous development 

 of the art of taxidermy in the United States which characterises 

 a quite recent period. This is due, in Dr. Shufeldt's opinion, to 

 the stimulating influence that the World's Columbian Exhibition 

 had upon every art and industry, an influence, one may add, that 

 extended far beyond the limits of the great republic. It was not, 

 however, merely the desire to rival other institutions and countries 

 that gave so great an impetus to the art, but the fact that a sufficient 

 appropriation of the needful dollars enabled their true strength and 

 best work to be put forth by such men as F, W. A, Lucag^ Joseph 

 and William Palmer, Nelson R, Wood, Henry Denslow, A, H. 

 Baldwin, George Marshafl, A, Z. Shindler, and J, E. Benedict, who 

 form part of the enthusiastic staff at the National Museum of the 

 United States of America. 



