THE MUSEUM. 



i8i 



specimen weighs several hundred 

 pounds." 



A brief statement to be sure, but a 

 graphic one, as the reader will admit. 

 There is not a word, however, as to 

 whether the boat was wrecked in its 

 "sudden" contact with the limy mass 

 "weighing several hundred pounds." 



Nor is there any reference to the 

 linal disposition of that part of "the 

 Fasciolaria" which when struck, was 

 "alive and traveling." But this fact 

 matters little, perhaps, since we are 

 assured that the "several hundred 

 pounds" w^ere gotten safely to the 

 shore, and finally into that collection 

 of shells which (I quote again) ' 'is ex- 

 pected to be in a short time the most 

 •complete and valuable one, from a 

 scientific standpoint, in the world." 



Presumably this monster of "Florida 

 Waters" is known to Science as Fas- 

 ciolaria gigantea, but alas! how piti- 

 able has been the ignorance of the 

 scores of so-called conchological ex- 

 perts who have hitherto believed that 

 this, the largest species of the genus, 

 did not exceed a paltry ten pounds in 

 Aveight. Think of it, ye academic 

 plodders who for years have been gaz- 

 ing with wonder upon a petty eight 

 pounder, imagining the while that 

 Florida had utterly failed to produce 

 anything larger in the same line. O, 

 the pity of it! You that have given 

 years of stud)^ and thought to the mol- 

 luscan world, how could you so mis- 

 take a pigmy for a giant, a veritable 

 baby for a grandfather? Far better 

 would it have been had you made a 

 Mecca of the Empiie State and sat at 

 the feet of its astute correspondent, 

 whose present throne is, doubtless, ye 

 same old Fasciolaria, "alive and trav- 

 eling" and "weighing several hundred 

 pounds. " — TJic Nautilus • 



The Triumphs of a Taxidermist. 



Here are some of the secrets of Tax- 

 idermy. They were told me by the 

 taxidermist in a mood of elation. He 

 told me them in the time between the 

 first glass of whiskey and the fourth, 

 when a man is no longer cautious and 

 yet not drunk. We sat in his den to- 

 gether; his library it was, his sitting 

 and his eating-room — separated by a 

 bed curtain, so far as the sense of sight 

 went, from the noisome den where he 

 plied his trade. 



He sat on a deck chair, and, when 

 he was not tapping refractory bits of 

 coal with them, he kept his feet — on 

 which he wore, after the manner of 

 sandals, the holy relics of a pair of 

 carpet slippers — out of the way upon 

 the mantle-piece, among the glass 

 eyes. And his trousers, by the bye — 

 though they have nothing to do with 

 his triumphs — were a most horrible 

 yellow plaid, such as they made when 

 our fathers wore side whiskers and 

 there were crinolines in the land. Fur- 

 ther, his hair was black, his face rosy, 

 and his eye a fiery brown; and his 

 coat was chiefly of grease upon a basis 

 of velveteen. And his pipe had a 

 bov/1 of china showing the Graces, and 

 his spectacles were always askew, the 

 left eye glaring nakedly at you, small 

 and penetrating; the right, seen though 

 a glass darkly, magnified and mild. 

 Thus his discourse ran: "There nev- 

 er was a man who could stuff like me. 

 Bellows, never. I have stuffed ele- 

 phants and I have stuffed moths and 

 the things have looked all the livelier 

 and better for it. And I have stuffed 

 human beings — chiefly amateur ornith- 

 ologists. But I stuffed a nigger once. 



"No, there is no law against it. I 

 made him with all his fingers out and 



