6 IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA 
A long list of others, not my contemporaries at that 
institution, but men with whom J have since been 
associated 1n museum work, might be added. Dr. 
Frederic A. Lucas had left Ward’s shortly before my 
arrival to take up his duties at the Smithsonian In- 
stitution but I came to feel that I knew him very well 
through the stories and reminiscences of my com- 
panions. It was not until my return from my third 
expedition in Ig11 that my delightful association with 
him as the director of the American Museum of Nat- 
ural History was begun. 
I have a theory that the first museum taxidermist 
came into existence in about this way: One of our 
dear old friends, some old-fashioned closet naturalist 
who knew animals only as dried skins and had been 
getting funds from some kind-hearted philanthropist, 
one day, under pressure from the philanthropist, who 
wanted something on exhibition to show his friends, 
sent around the corner and called in an upholsterer 
and said, “Here is the skin of an animal. Stuff this 
thing and make it look like a live animal.” The 
upholsterer did it and kept on doing it until the scien- 
tist had a little more money. Given more work the 
upholsterer became ambitious and had an idea that 
these animals might be improved upon, so he began to 
do better work. But it took more time and cost more 
money so that he lost his job. Thus it has been that 
from the very people from whom we expected the 
most encouragement in the beginning of our efforts, 
we received the least. 
I remember very well one time when an opportun- 
