46 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1893. 



Shufeldt, U. S. Army, who had recently published some articles on 

 taxidermy in "The Great Divide,'' and who was also a judge of awards 

 in the department of taxidermy at the Columbian Exposition, to pre- 

 pare an article upon the modern museum taxidermy. It was the idea 

 that Dr. Shufeldt, not being attached to any museum, would ])e able to 

 examine cridcally and discuss the subject without prejudice, taking 

 into consideration all that has been done elsewhere as well as in Wash- 

 ington, and this he endeavored to do. The predominance of illnstra- 

 tions taken from specimens in our Museum, as finally published, was 

 not intentional, but was due to the difticulty of obtaining satistactory 

 photographs from other establishments. An etibrt was made to obtain 

 illustrations from the Isew York Museum and from the British Museum.* 

 The illustrations obtained from these sources by no means did justice to 

 the specimens illustrated, and the efforts to secure photograjths of the 

 Savi groups in Pisa, and of the rhinoceros mounted for the Medici 

 collection in Florence three hundred years ago, were unsuccessful. 



Dr. Shufeldt's essay, which was published in the Museum report for 

 1892, has attracted much attention, especially abroad, and the Ameri- 

 can taxidermic work, the excellences of which are suggested rather than 

 fully depicted in the illustrations, has received much praise from those 

 who are not familiar with it, and, if one may predict, the paper will be 

 useful in still further raising tlie standard of museum taxidermy. 



A special illustrated supplement to IS^atural Science was published 

 in England on the occasion of the meeting of the British Association for 

 the Advancement of Science. This was entitled " Taxidermy as a Fine 

 Art,*' and was devoted not so much to a review of the Shufeldt article 

 as to critical comments upon the illustrations, of which a selection of 

 nine were reproduced. In closing his remarks the editor says: 



In selecting the plates for this article we have paifl but small attention to the 

 many beautiful illustrations of birds. In respect to bird groups our home museums 

 do not reijuire much teaching, though even they have yet to learn that a bird can 

 be mounted in the most natural manner on an ordinary museum perch or stand. It 



*l)r. 1\. Bowdler Sharpe's paper on "Ornithology at South Kensington," in the 

 "English Illustrated Magazine." December, 1887, pp. 166-175, gives an excellent idea 

 of the British Museum groups, though the illustrations, not being photographic, do 

 not aft'ord the oi>])ortunity forjudging the degree to which the accessories simulate- 

 natural ert'ects. 



We frankly admit that in the matter of environmental groups of birds, Great 

 Britain still surpasses the United States. So far as taxidermy is coiicerned, Ameri- 

 can workmen can hold their own, but the art of making and grouping accessoriea 

 we have yet to acquire. The only successful accessory work done in this country is 

 that by the Mogridges, who were trained at South Kensington, and who are repre- 

 sented extensively in the New York ^luseum and by one ])iece in Washington. 



Many of the groups of this kind, even when made by the Mogridges, err in mak- 

 ing the accessories more jiromincnt than the birds and tilling the cases with artifi- 

 cial flowers and leaves to such a degree that the birds are entirely subordinate. An 

 excellent illustration of etiective and legitimate use of accessories is to be seen in 

 the admirable group of king-rails in the New York Museum. 



