THE OSPREY. 



An Illustrated IVIagazine of Birds and IMatiire. 



Published Monthly except in July and August. 



VoLl ME ii. 



SEPTEMBER, J898, 



Number 1. 



TAXIDERMY AS AN ART. 



BY JOHN RO\VI,EY. 

 Chief Taxidermist of the American Museum of Natural History. 



OME twenty years ago, 

 the seed ol American 

 by 

 A. 

 Kocliester. 

 spacious 

 laboratories known as 

 Ward's Natural Science 

 Establishment the seed 

 developed into a bud in 

 the shape of a corps of 

 young men who were 

 enthusiastic students of the various 

 branches of natural history. Here they 

 were given opportunities to study anil 

 practice on their various lines, and above all else 

 each man had the benefit of the experience of his 

 fellow workers. 



Previous to this. Ainerica could boast of but a 

 few taxidermists, and these, chiefly foreigners 

 and men past middle age and extremely secretive 

 of their methods, did but little to advance the 

 trade of taxidermy. But with the growth of 

 new public museums came a demand for skilled 

 taxidermists, and one by one these were drawn 

 from that great school in Rochester. In the 

 taxidermic laboratories thus established in the 

 various museums throughout the United States 

 these preparators were given full scope to ex- 

 pend their energies in producing the finest re- 

 sults; and the Rochester bud gradually unfolded 

 itself until at the present time it may be said to 

 have fairly blossomed out and ooened to its 

 fullest capacity. In proof of this statement I 

 may ask wdiere in the world are the examples of 

 taxidermy better than in .America? .^nd why is 

 this? Simply because these men and their fo'- 

 lowers have studied and experimented on new 

 lines, thrown petty jealousies aside and promul- 

 gated their ideas on the subject, and held com- 

 petitive exhibitions where speciinens of the work- 

 manship of different individuals could be ex- 

 hibited side by side for a comparison. 



A commercial taxidermist who has so many 

 birds or mammals to mount in the course of a 

 month, in order to meet his living exnenses must 

 of necessity set through them as raoidly as is 

 consistent with good workmanship. But he hns 

 not the time to experiment on new' methods. If 

 the niethod he used a^ year ago worked all right, 

 it \yil! work again, aiid does. It will thus be 

 seen that it has been left almost entirely for 

 museum taxidermists to perfect the methods. 



Not many years since almost every mounted 

 deer s head was "stuffed" by crowding the skin 

 full of a fibrous material such as straw. Later a 

 "manikin" or dummy figure of the head, without 

 the skin, was built up of wood and excelsior, 

 coated w-ith soft clay and the wet skin was sewed 

 and modeled on over this. This method is now 

 in general use throughout the country. It has 

 since been found that even this method had a 

 number of serious disadvantages, and although it 

 was a step in the right direction, has again been 

 perfected until now- the manikin is modeled in 

 plastic materials, every detail of the external 

 anatomy as well as those of the mouth and nose 

 worked out to their fullest extent and the dressed 

 skin glued fast to the hard dummy figure. All 

 mammals wdiich will admit of it are now^ 

 mounted in this way in the American Museum, 

 the extent of the details of anatomy being of 

 course governed by the length of hair on the skin 

 which is to clothe the manikin. 



In modeling the statue, the form and external 

 anatomy are copied from life if possible. If a 

 living example is not at hand, good photographs 

 and sketches from life or plaster casts taken from 

 the dead subject are used. The latter are of the 

 utinost service as guides in modeling: and the- 

 time is not far distant when all scientific pre- 

 parators w'ill demand that a good plaster cast 

 of all peculiarities of form of certain parts of ai 

 specimen be taken by the collector in the field. 

 A subject such as a moose head, for example, 

 re(|uires this, as, if no studies of the shape of the 

 nose were made, the genius does not exist who 

 could remember all the points and reproduce 

 them at w-ill upon his model in the laboratory, 

 much less describe them to another in such a way 

 as to enable him to do so. A glance at the ac- 

 conipanying plate, "Casting a Moose's Head," 

 w-ill fully illus'rate this idea. It will thus be seen 

 that to model a manikin such as that for the 

 zebr-i. which is here shown, reauires not only 

 careful study of nropor'ions and form but the 

 eye and touch of the sculptor as well. 



A systematic collection of mounted birds is as 

 necessary to a scientific museum as is the curator 

 himself: but of late vears it has been found that 

 groups of birds with their nests and eggs or 

 young, properly displayed with artificial foliage 

 modeled from the natural olants. added a most 

 pleasing and nopular as well as scientific interest 

 to tl-ip collections. 



This i-i-iethod of exhibiting birds opened a great 



