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 iu 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 hues 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 maybe 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 andperfect- 

 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 Gorgones described by Pliny (140 

 B.C.). 



Our own Pueblan Indians, as the Zunians and others, make very 

 good "flat skins" of small birds to-day, an art no doubt traceable in 



