SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 429 



There is another, and now exceedingly rare animal, it being on the 

 very verge of extinction, which our museum is exceptionably fortunate 

 in obtaining a specimen, before the destructive and thoughtless hand of 



man eliminated it entirely. I refer to the walrus. This animal's status 

 is now pretty well known to the reading public, through the publications 

 of the National Museum, those of Mr. H. W. Elliot, of William Palmer, 

 and the daily press incidentally to the general question of the seal-fish- 

 ery problem. The Museum walrus was mounted in the light of all the 

 improvements and skill modern taxidermy could bring to bear upon 

 the undertaking, and the success was complete. It constituted when 

 finished one of the graudest subjects the Smithsonian sent on to the 

 Government exhibit at the Columbian Exposition, where at the pres- 

 ent writing it is. On Plates lxxxvi, Figs. 1 and 2, and lxxxvii I am 

 permitted to give a series of figures from photographs taken at various 

 times during the preservation of this colossal mammal. These so 

 clearly represent what I intend they should that special explanation of 

 any one of them becomes unnecessary. The series are destined to be 

 illustrations of the very highest interest for ages to come, and ere 

 another century rolls by, people will regard them with wonder, and 

 that men actually preserved such a brute, in the flesh, will read far 

 more like fiction than a reality. At a far remote period it will be 

 classed with such ideal scenes as prehistoric man engaged in slaying a 

 mammoth or rudely carving upon the tusks of one. 



Some of the seals and other marine mammals in the Museum are very 

 fine in every particular, while, on the other hand, some of them sadly 

 need reduplicating, as they, too, are soon to be exterminated. This 

 applies also to the bears, of which there are some very handsome repre- 

 sentatives, but none more so than the Polar Bear (Plate lxxxv), of 

 which there is not a finer mounted specimen in the world. He is rep- 

 resented as walking up an ice floe at a slight incline, and from the free 

 upper margins of which hang many icicles. Ice is often wonderfully 

 well counterfeited by using a moderate coat of paraffin over sheet glass, 

 or even wood, and we gain the proper effect through its transparency. 

 The icicles are of glass, of course, and made especially for the purpose, 

 while the tout ensemble of the effect is perfect. 



When another commodious zoological building is added to the pres- 

 ent group of Government institutions, I am of the opinion that the 

 correct idea is to not only show groups of animals composed of one 

 species, but to a certain extent faunal groups, wherein can be worked 

 with the greatest advantage many other natural productions of the 

 country where the animals occur, as plants, topography, etc. ISTow 

 these large groups, if arranged round the wall space, with a varying 

 depth of 5 to 25 feet, may in some cases be made to advantageously 

 merge into each other — that is, to a certain extent, show regional groups 

 and their mergences. For instance, one large case might be con- 



