SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 423 



art known to me has ever accomplished a grander feat than this, and 

 it is as fully worthy of our unstinted admiration as is any form that has 

 ever materialized beneath the chisel of an Angelo or a Hiram Powers. 

 And were I to choose between being- the author of Paul Potter's bull 

 and these buffalo, I should without a moment's hesitation decide in 

 favor of the latter. 



They will be standing in as good order as they are at this writing, 

 long after the former has faded away from off its canvas. 



Many hue groups of mammals were by the National Museum sent on 

 to the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago to form a part of the 

 Smithsonian exhibit. Most of these were as fine things of the kind as 

 have ever been seen in this country, and the writer of this report en- 

 joyed the unusual privilege of seeing many of these in the course of 

 their mounting. This was accomplished by a corps of skillful work- 

 men, including such men as Mr. Joseph Palmer, William Palmer, George 

 Marshall, and others, the whole being under the direction of Mr. P. AY. 

 True, curator of mammals. 



it would be quite out of the question to even enumerate, not to say 

 describe, all of the - groups or single pieces of mammals that now enrich 

 the collections of the U. S. National Museum. We can at the best put 

 in a word here and there about the most notable of them and the good 

 or bad points they offer us. Among those as yet unnoticed is the fine 

 case eontaining'the three specimens of Ovibos moschatus, the musk oxen, 

 and I have heard various criticisms in regard to the forms that were 

 bestowed upon those animals by the taxidermist who preserved them. 

 Never having seen the animal alive, I hardly feel competent to judge in 

 the matter, but that the group is a most pleasing one there can be no 

 question. They are represented standing upon barren rock which has 

 recently been overlain by a light fall of snow. This last has been admi- 

 rably rendered by a composition compounded of starch, the pulp of white 

 blotting paper, and plaster-of-Paris — an invention of Mr. Joseph Pal- 

 mer's that has produced a very realistic effect. 



Perhaps the best mounted specimen of a Musk Ox now extant is the 

 one in the possession of E. V. Skinner, esq., of the Canadian Pacific 

 Railroad Company, and valued at*$2,500. 



Mr. Frederic S. Webster published an account of this animal in 

 Forest and Stream, of New York, in its issue of January 20, 1893, and 

 gave a figure of the Ox. Through the kindness of Mr. Skinner for the 

 waiving of copyright and loan of the electro of that figure we are 

 enabled to reproduce it herein Plate lxxx. Mr. Webster's article in 

 Forest and Stream was entitled " An Arctic Rover,' 1 and ran as fol- 

 lows: 



The musk ox (Ovibos moschatus) is considered by naturalists one of tlie rarest of 

 our North American mammalia. In aclinic of almost perpetual winter, within the 

 Arctic Circle, this animal lives and thrives. In a land which has been so fascina- 

 ting and so fatal to the many explorers who have sought to solve the mysteries of 



