124 bulletin: museum of comparative zoology. 



the Hiring maners as they rise" Has ever been held, not only allowable, but meri- 

 torious; so it is to be hoped the same wish to please and entertain, will in the 

 present case, be viewed at least with candor. 



Mr. Philip Woods of the older Boston or Market Museum adver- 

 tised, March 24, 1805:1 — 



A Monstrous Crocodile, which measured when alive 12 feet in length and 

 4 feet around the body — was killed in Egypt, when devouring a black boy; 

 which is naturally represented with Mimgo in his mouth. 



On June 29, 1S05, he designates among the attractions added to his 

 show : 1 — 



The Philadelphia, New York, and Salem beauties and a number of other 

 figures, also a number of natural curiosities, among which is the skin of the 

 sea-elephant in natural preservation, which measured eighty feet in length 

 and six feet around the body. 



The Boston Museum thus derived by direct inheritance the unique 

 position which it afterward held among American theatres. Even 

 after its dramatic company came to be one of the best in the United 

 States, it still offered to its patrons its side-shows of picture-galleries, 

 stuffed animals, and chambers of horror in wax-work. Many an old 

 Bostonian remembers his Saturday afternoons as a child at the 

 "Museum," — afternoons ending with ice-creams at Copeland's or 

 oysters at Higgins's, and followed by a restless night perturbed by 

 strange dreams of wax images, boa constrictors, and -"Aladdin," or 

 "The Forty Thieves," fused into one composite horror such as never 

 was on sea or land. Perhaps some may recall the taxidermic " artist" 

 who stood ready to set up a pet canary-bird or kitten " as natural as 

 life," while its owner was assuaging his grief for his lost pet by " seeing 

 Warren." And all this, except the supper and the kitten, for fifteen 

 cents! I doubt if children of the present time can get so much for 

 their mothers' money. 



Peale's Museum was an institution of a very different kind from its 

 Boston contemporaries, — at least during its earlier period under the 

 management of its founder. Charles Willson Peale^ — artist, soldier, 



1 Brayley, I. c. 



2 See Biograpliical Sketch of Charles Willson Peale. [By Rembrandt Peale].< 

 Doughty's Cabinet of Natural History, 1, p. i-vii, portr., Philadelphia: 1830. Lieber's 

 Encyclopedia Americana, 9, p. 571-572, Philadelphia: 1832. Dunlap's History of the 

 Rise and Progress of the Arts of Design In the United States, 1, p. 136-142, New York: 

 1834. Peale's Museum. By Harold Sellers Colton. <Popw7ar Science Monthly, 5, 

 Sept., 1909, p. 221-2,38. 



