422 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 



is to the strict attention to stich anatomical details that very often the 

 success and reputation of a taxidermist depends, and he can do no 

 better than to see well to ir that no such haws creep into his perform- 

 ances. 



This group of moose is about the only notable thing of the kind that 

 the National Museum has for the Cervidse at present, but this does 

 not mean to imply that a general poverty exists in so far as that fam- 

 ily is concerned. There are a goodly number of individual pieces of 

 deer, some of which, however, are deplorable looking objects, and 

 fitting relics of those days when taxidermy had not readied to what it 

 can do so well in these times. Among the better specimens we observe 

 a fine piece in that representative of the antelope group known as 

 Thomson's Gazelle (Gazella thomsonii), Plate lxxviii. It has been 

 entered as No. 189G4 of the collection of the Museum, and has been 

 recently described by Mr. True in his u An Annotated Catalogue of 

 the Animals Collected by Dr. W. L. Abbott in the Kilima-Njaro 

 Region, East Africa." (Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. v, xv, p. 473., PI. lxxvii, 

 1802). The faults in the mounting of this specimen are of so trivial a 

 nature that it is not worth my while to enumerate them here, and were 

 all the deer and their kin preserved as well as this specimen is, it would 

 be far more of a pleasure to the sensitive naturalist to gaze upon them, 

 who is now pardonably often shocked upon viewing some of his favor- 

 ites in the museum cases. 



But to return to the groups, we have now to notice perhaps one of 

 the very finest accomplishments that the art of taxidermy has produced 

 in this country. I refer to the case containing the several specimens 

 of our now nearly extinct bison or American buffalo. This triumph 

 in the preservation of mammals of ponderous proportions is almost 

 entirely due to the consummate skill and perseverance of Hornaday, 

 who has popularly described it in many places. This latter fact, taken 

 in connection with the fine Plate (lxxix) I have been permitted to give 

 of it, renders it obviously unnecessary for me to dwell upon the general 

 appearance of this life-like herd of bovines. They are all true to the 

 life, preserved by all the most efficient methods of modern taxidermy, 

 and, what is not generally kuown by people who are, or have been, priv- 

 ileged to see this case, that the very sod upon which these animals now 

 stand was brought for the purpose all the way from Montana, being 

 shipped direct from the buffalo ranges of that territory to Washington. 

 This applies also to the sage-brush which is made to appear to be actu- 

 ally growing therein; and the broom-sedge, and the cacti. The skulls 

 and other bones of the buffalo lying about were gathered in the same 

 place: indeed, as a whole, it is a strip of a Montana prairie of an old 

 range of these animals, [ticked up piecemeal, and now again unfolded 

 in the ease at the Museum just as it occurred in nature. Even the very 

 buffalo tracks seen about the pool of water in the case Avere made by 

 using a real buffalo's hoof for the stamp to make the impressions. No 



