54 



THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



The first bird groups, those in the 

 British Museum and those here, were, 

 if we may borrow a phrase once famiHar, 

 now almost obsolete, pre-Raphaelistic 

 in their character — exact copies of the 

 spot or surroundings where the animals 

 were taken. The plants were counted 

 and plotted on a diagram; sod, roots and 

 shrubs were dug up and transported, 

 often in the face of great difficulties, to 

 the museum where the group was to be 

 established, and there assembled in the 



exact and proper order of occurrence. 

 The next step was the habitat group 

 and here is where Dr. Frank M. Chap- 

 man comes into the story, for it is to 

 him that we owe the series of nature 

 pictures known by that name. 



The habitat group does not copy 

 nature slavishly, even though an actual 

 scene forms the background; it aims to 

 give a broad and graphic presentation 

 of the conditions under which certain 

 assemblages of bird life are found, to 



VIRGINIA DEER IN THE AMERICAN MUSEUM 



Virginia deer, American Museum of Natural History, moimted by Mr. Carl E. Akeley in 1902. Tiiis 

 Is an example of work that has made modern taxidermy an art. The work of the taxidermist is in a 

 way more difficult than that of the sculptor, that is he must not only make a model of the animal 

 in lifelike pose, but must then with great art fit over this model the unyielding skin of the animal 



