A NEW ART BEGUN 15 
come out even on my expenditures for labour and 
materials but for my own time and for profit there 
was nothing. However, I had the experience and 
the method and I felt that it was a pretty good four 
years’ work. 
In the old days at Ward’s a taxidermist was a man 
who took an animal’s skin from a hunter or collector 
and stuffed it or upholstered it. By the time I had 
finished the deer groups I had become pretty well 
convinced that a real taxidermist needed to know 
the technique of several quite different things. 
First, he must be a field man who can collect his 
own specimens, for other people’s measurements are 
never very satisfactory, and actual study of the 
animals in their own environment is necessary in 
making natural groups. 
Second, he must know both animal anatomy and 
clay modelling in order to make his models. 
Third, he should have something of the artistic 
sense to make his groups pleasing as well as accurate. 
| Fourth, he must know the technique of manikin 
making, the tanning of skins, and the making of ac- 
cessories such as artificial leaves, branches, etc. 
With all these different kinds of technique in taxi- 
dermy it is obvious that if a man attempts to do prac- 
tically everything himself, as I did in the deer groups, 
taxidermy must be a very slow process—just as if a 
painter had to learn to make his own paint or a sculp- 
tor to cast his own bronzes or chisel his concepts out 
of granite or marble. 
The proper care of the skins in the field is itself a 
