SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 415 



can be mounted when they fall into the bands of the unskilled. It is 

 better, however, I think to forget and forgive all that has been done 

 in the past, provided we continually strive to copy nature as closely as 

 possible in the future. To this end 1 reproduced as many good models 

 as possible, and have given only a few showing how taxidermy ought 

 not to be done. Examples of the " bow-not- to-do-it" 1 kind have been in- 

 troduced here and there only as warnings. 



Our wild turkey seems always to have given trouble to the old-time 

 taxidermists, and some perfect frights are made to do duty for that noble 

 fowl in the collection. Some of these are so badly prepared that they 

 are downright hideous, while in some respects they fail to give any idea 

 of the bird or its appearance in nature. The taxidermy of the turkey, 

 moreover, presents difficulties that are to be encountered only in a lim- 

 ited number of birds in any avifauna. Chief among these problems is 

 the proper preservation of the practically featherless head. This is not 

 only without feathers, as we know, but in life is highly colored, corru- 

 gated, and wattled below. Whoever it was that prepared the turkeys 

 in former times that now disgrace the cases of the ornithological depart- 

 ment I do not pretend to know, any more than I know the reason why 

 such miserable fifth-class pieces of work are retained there, unless it 

 be something after the order of Chinese ancestry worship, and an op- 

 posing of the methods of the moderns. 



To condemn the bad and to recommend every result that reproduces 

 nature is my object here, and this thought was uppermost in my mind 

 when the comparison made iu Plate lxix was undertaken. As one looks 

 at this plate the left-hand head shows how wretchedly bad meleagriue 

 taxidermy may be done sometimes* The wattle-like comb has had no 

 pains whatever taken with it, and appears more like a curved, semi- 

 erect, filamentous horn than anything else; the skin of the head has 

 been stretched down an inch lower than it belongs, rendered possible 

 by the "stufifer" eliminating all the corrugations that naturally occur 

 in it; then the feathers that belong on the back of the neck are twisted 

 round to the front. After it was dry he further insulted the poor bird 

 by blotching his neck all over with red, white, and bluepaint — patriotic, 

 but a villainous practice notwithstanding. 



Compare this with the second head in the same plate. In the first 

 place it is perfect iu form, and all the parts are naturally disposed. 

 This bird's head is restored in wax — that, is the skin of it is, together 

 with the comb and anteroinferior wattles. In this the proper colors 

 have been so adroitly incorporated that the effect produced is life-like 

 in the highest degree. Even the little hair-like feathers have been by 

 a process of the art normally scattered in their places over the head. 

 The remainder of the bird is prepared quite in keeping with this truly 

 beautifully preserved specimen. An old gobbler of this species is shown 

 in Plate lxviii. He is mounted in the act of strutting, and the models 

 for it have been furnished principally by the act as it is performed by 



