II HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 



our art whicli correspond to those grand mural paintings of Pompeii 

 now collected in the museum at Naples, which are supposed to date 

 from the first period of Roman painting. We have no parallel with 

 these to give evidence that our art was at all practiced in ancient 

 times. 



The art of embalming was invented by the Egyptians for the pur- 

 pose of preserving dead bodies from decay by means of aromatics, 

 antiseptics or desiccation. It was an art created by the demands of 

 the religious superstition of the times, and was practiced by the ancients 

 from the earliest periods, but, unfortunately, was not calculated to 

 enlighten and elevate. In their sepulchres, tombs and pits are found 

 not only countless bodies of human beings, but also myriads of dogs, 

 apes, crocodiles, cats, ibises, sheep, oxen and other animals. 



All this was associated with their religious belief, for they held that 

 the soul, after completing its cycle of separate existences extending 

 through several thousand years, again returned to the body, and if that 

 were found decayed or wasted, it transmigrated. It was not for the 

 love of having their specimens look natural and life-like, but for the 

 reason of their superstitious belief, that their spirits would, in course 

 of time, return to their bodies, and they would again live with their 

 cats and dogs as before the spirit left the body. 



Embalming is simply a means of preservation, is a separate art, 

 and cannot, strictly speaking, come under the head of taxidermy, while 

 taxidermy proper attempts to reproduce the forms, attitudes and ex- 

 pressions of animals as they appear in life. 



The skins of animals were used from the most remote periods for 

 clothing and various useful and ornamental articles, but respecting 

 those periods we have no knowledge of the skins being mounted to 

 represent life-like forms and attitudes. History records the fact that 

 the older Indian tribes decorated themselves on different occasions 

 with the heads of porcupines, foxes, raccoons, eagles, etc., stuffed so as 

 to look quite natural. 



It is told that the first attempt to stuS" birds was when the Hol- 

 landers in the early part of the sixteenth century began their commer- 

 cial intercourse with the East Indies. 



A nobleman brought back to Amsterdam a large collection of live 

 tropical birds and placed them in an aviary, which was heated to the 

 proper temperature by a furnace. It happened that the attendant 

 one night before retiring carelessly left the door of the furnace open, 

 thereby allowing the smoke to escape, which suffocated the birds. The 

 nobleman beholding the destruction of his large collection, which was 



