48 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1893. 



time, or material, was too great, if needful to secure the very best possi- 

 ble results wbicli his abilities would enable him to i)roduce. When he 

 had accomplished a really creditable and conscientious piece of work, 

 his name was placed upon the label as its maker. In this way a good 

 piece of taxidermy is placed in the same standing, in its way, as a book 

 printed by Mr, William Morris or one bound by Mr. Cobden-Sanderson. 

 One of the former members of the ^Vlnseum staff of taxidermists, now 

 engaged in other pursuits, writes: 



The fact that the Natioual Museum gives the author of a really good group credit 

 for it ou the label has had a great influence for good. The American Museum is the 

 only other that I have ever known to do this; but if the museum officers generally 

 could only know the tremendous stimulus this is to even the humblest taxidermist 

 all would take advantage of it. And it costs nothing. If your plan in this respect 

 were universallv adopted it would be a constant and powerful stimulus to the pro- 

 duction of the finest kind of work." 



No taxidermist or modeler was placed in a responsible position who 

 was not himself a naturalist and whose own instincts did not lead him 

 to study a living model or the best attainable pictures or sculptures 

 of similar subjects before beginning his work, and whose painstaking 

 habits of research did not have an influence upon his method of Mork 

 to such an extent that he would work out every muscle and bone with 

 reference to casts or skeletons before him in his workshop. 



The workshops soon became filled with photographs and casts, and 

 among these would be seen models and sometimes originals from the 

 hand of Barye and other sculptors, whose art the taxidermist attempted 

 to adopt as far as possible into his own. These men were members of 

 the scientific societies, and some ot them have since become specialists 

 in science, although they have never lost their relationships to their 

 previous work. Prof. W. B. Scott, of Princeton University, and Prof. 

 F. H. Knowlton, of Columbian University, did excellent work in taxi- 

 dermy before leaving it for research-work, and Mr. L. L. Dyche, although 

 professor of zoology in the State University of Kansas, mounted with 

 his own hands most of the specimens in the great grouj^s shown in the 

 Kansas State building at Chicago. 



Incidentally it may be mentioned that many American naturalists 

 are amateur taxidermists, and that some of the most successful groups 

 of mammals and birds in the Museum have been done by Avorkmen 

 not possessed of artistic skill though excellent in technique, whose 

 work has been designed and directed by the curators of the several 

 departments. 



In connection with these discussions of American work it seems 

 desirable to refer to the extensive collection of South African mammals 

 and birds, exhibited at the Dr. Emil Ilolub's South African Exposi- 

 tion in Prague in 1891. + The mammals were mounted in groups in 



* A label of the kind here referred to is illustrated in one of the plates. 

 t Dr. Holub's South African Exposition was held in the building erected for the 

 National Jubilee in Bohemia in 1891. Here were exhibited the material results of 



