REPORT OF ASSISTANT SECRETARY. 43 



mounted ill attitudes of repose for case installation, iioi' is it intended 

 to if^nore tiie wonderful work done under Paolo Savi lor the Uuiversity 

 of IMsa — work ([uite in the nuxlern si)irit, which the test of nearly a 

 century has shown to have all the qualities of good workinanshii).* But 

 for the fact that these are buried in the midst of a poorly installed 

 collection in an inaccessible gallery iu a small Italian city, possibly the 

 spirit of modern artistic taxidermy would not have remained so long 

 latent. The museum at Turin has also had excellent taxidermists in 

 its eniploj'. 



At Leyden also much good work was done, and the animals were 

 mounted iu varied positions. The birds at Leyden aftbrded a striking 

 contrast to those iu the Natural History Museum at Bremen. These 

 were mounted in tixed conventional attitudes, and since the museum 

 possessed an immense collection of birds, they were crowded together 

 side by side, heads toward the wall and tails projecting over the edges 

 of the shelves toward the spectator, so that they looked like horses in 

 a stable, viewed from the rear. This museum, as I saw it iu 1880, was 

 an eloquent teacher of methods to be avoided. It is to be hoped that, 

 before now, most of these skins have been unmounted and placed in 

 drawers iu a study series, and a reasonable exhibition series substi- 

 tuted. 



Mr. John Hancocii, of Loudon, many years ago did excellent work, 

 combining artistic feeling with scientitic accuracy, and Mr. E. T. Booth 

 somewhat later developed a marvelous collection of British birds in 

 his '^Dyte Eoad Museum" at Brighton. These were mounted in life- 

 like attitudes in the midst of natural accessories, and were satisfactory 

 alike to artists and to naturalists. Following in the same course the 

 admirablj" mounted collection in the Town Museum at Leicester was 

 developed by Mr. Montagu Brown, and that in the British Museum of 

 iS^atural History under Dr. Giinther, beginning as early as 1880. On 

 this side of the Atlantic, as early as 1870, most excellent work of this 

 kind was done by Mr. Andrew Downes iu his jjiivate cabinet in Hali- 

 fax, iNTova Scotia. 



The Society of American Taxidermists was organized March 24, 1880, 

 by Messrs. Hornaday, Lucas, Webster, Critchley, Jules Bailly (a pupil 

 of Verreaux), Martens, and I'raine, all of Rochester, and a number of 

 other taxidermists scattered through the country joined in the move- 

 ment. This society was the direct outgrowth of the aspirations of the 

 enthusiastic founders of the new American school, and had for its 

 object not only the improvement of taxidermy from the technical stand- 

 point, but the elevation and ennobling of the profession of taxidermy 

 and the establishment of loftier ideals for the work. 



The intention was to hold annual exhibitions, to secure the award of 



* A group of starlings around the skull of a sheep rivals the best bird group since 

 made, and a boar attacked bv bounds shows wonderful skill in inanimal work. 



