SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 381 



upon to decide ;is to the relative merits of the talent required to paint 

 a lite size elephant, to sculpture one in stone, or to properly preserve one 

 in ;i natural position and color so it would safely resist the ravages of 

 time and all else that might injure it. I should not hesitate a moment 

 in rendering an opinion, for I should say it lay with the scientific tax- 

 idermic artist. Mind you, when I do thus decide 1 have had in my lite- 

 time, with specimens of smaller animals, experience with all. At t la- 

 best, however, the difference is but of very small degree, and yet the 

 taxidermist, in a way, should be master of both the art of the painter 

 and the art of the sculptor, for frequently he has to use the brush with 

 great fidelity to nature, and the time is fast coming on when he must 

 be able to build up, in clay at least, the entire forms of the larger ani- 

 mals which he aims to preserve. 



Next, it may be asked, Why a collegiate education ? Simply because 

 I believe a man in any calling is a better man in every way for having 

 received the four years' training which a university gives him. And 

 surely neither the taxidermist, nor the artist, nor the sculptor offer any 

 exception to the rule. Moreover, everything that the skilled taxider- 

 mist would acquire in a college course would materially assist him in 

 his profession in his subsequent career. Whatever may have been 

 written, and whatever may have been said on the broad question of 

 the college man versus the self-made man, it has been my experience 

 that the kind of men that bring our country the most desirable recog- 

 nition from other nations are those who have received a liberal educa- 

 tion. A taxidermist should be a good ge leral biologist, and he should 

 pay especial attention to the habits of all animals in nature; the geo- 

 graphical ranges of fauna 1 ; breeding habits; the peculiar habits in- 

 dulged in by various kinds of animals; their natural resorts during times 

 of feeding, amusement, or conducting their young. Plants of all kinds 

 should with scrupulous care be studied from the taxidermist's stand- 

 point, as well as the localities where they grow, nature of surfaces of 

 the ground, and all else presented on the part of held, ocean, stream, 

 and forest. Nothing should escape his constant study of such matters, 

 and, above all else, he should cultivate the faculty of patience. An 

 impatient man, it may be safely said, can never attain to the highest 

 position the art has in its power of giving him. 



In comparative morphology, as I have said, he should devote a great 

 deal of time to the skeleton and to topographical anatomy. The study 

 of the skeleton is of the very highest importance, as without a knowl- 

 edge of it there is no hope at all of a man being a perfect taxidermist 

 in all its varied departments. Normal movements of the articulations 

 and the ligaments that control them should receive most careful consid 

 eration, and no opportunity lost to study such matters scientifically 

 upon all kinds of animal cadavers. Special drawings made by the 

 taxidermist should record special points observed and worked out — the 

 possibilities in normal movements and postures as exhibited by the 



