41 S REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 



the feet and ears, etc., all conduces to this. And so, of a consequence, 

 it especially devolves upon the taxidermist of the class of the vertebrata 

 to provide himself with accurate drawings and with photographs of 

 mammals, also with casts and figures of the skinned bodies and parts 

 of bodies of his subjects. This is just what the sculptor is obliged to 

 do in his art, and I remember very well, years ago, when I enjoyed the 

 rare opportunity of watching Mr. John Rodgers at work in his studio. 

 I have known him to carefully measure as many as thirty well-formed 

 horses and take the average of those measurements sO as to get at the 

 data to model a handsome animal for a statuette of Washington. Not 

 content with this, he had also in his room a complete series of plaster 

 casts of the superficial muscles and other structures demonstrating 

 equine morphology. 



Further, all the principles I have referred to in the taxidermy of 

 birds apply, almost without exception, to the class now to be consid- 

 ered. Groups are of especial interest where mammals are the subjects, 

 and the National Museum has some of the grandest of them now on 

 exhibition as a part of her mammalian series known to any institution 

 of the present time. Take, for example, the group of American opos- 

 sums in the collection. This was mounted by Mr. Hornaday, who has 

 described it in the following words in his work on taxidermy. He says : 



The case which incloses the entire group is 4 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 3 feet 

 high. The frame of the case is as light as possible, and all four sides and the top 

 are of glass. On the side of a sloping bank stands the base of a small gum tree, 

 with the roots on the lower side exposed by the crumbling away of the bark. Of 

 course the trunk rises to tbe top of the case, where it is cut squarely off. At the 

 bottom of the sloping bank between two of the roots is an opening, which is recog- 

 nized at once as the doorway to the opossum's home. The burrow winds upward 

 between the roots of the tree, and finally turns off to the left into the bank, where, 

 after running through a passageway of 2 or 3 feet in length, the nest itself is found. 

 It is in a pocket-like excavation, and a circular section is cut out of the front of the 

 bank so as to make an opening through which the nest can be seen. * 



The nest is lined with dead leaves, in which lies an opossum curled up and sound 

 asleep. At the back of the case a sectional view of the bank is represented, and by 

 means of an opening cut here and there the course of the burrow is plainly seen. 

 In the foreground is an old mother opossum with several young ones riding on her 

 back, clinging to her gray coat, while the head of another protrudes from her 

 pouch. This represents the manner in which the opossum carries her young after 

 they have reached a certain age. From a small branch hangs another opossum, sus- 

 pended by its prehensile tail, sprawling in midair. This specimen is a female, and 

 shows the size and location of the wonderful marsupial pouch, t Another individual 



* This I take to be the only real defect in this otherwise masterly piece of taxi-. 

 dermic art. That cut, subcircular as it is, is constantly being mistaken for the real 

 entrance made by the animal to its burrow, and what is the true opening between 

 the roots of the tree often overlooked. The false cut should have been made on the 

 end of the bank, where the side glass covers its supposed section, and we could have 

 seen into the burrow through it. This can easily be remedied. 



tThis individual does not appear in the group as it is now exhibited, but forms a 

 separate piece. 



