OF OBJECTS IN NATURAL HISTORY. 503 



the body behind the thighs, fastened the wire to the claws, the 

 ends serving to fix the specimen to a board, and put in glass 

 beads for the eyes. The larger animals, such as the shark and 

 crocodile, were stuffed with straw. 



The plan of skinning and stuffing with soft materials was 

 afterwards attempted. Schceffer, after skinning a bird, cut 

 the- skin longitudinally in two, and filled one-half with plas- 

 ter moulded to the shape of the bird ; fixed the skin thus pre- 

 pared to a board in a frame, represented the beak or claws 

 by painting, and covered the whole with glass. 



The early modes of preserving animals, however, having been 

 found very imperfect, the attention of the French naturalists 

 was for many years directed to the subject, and many trea- 

 tises on Taxidermy, as it is now called, were written. In 

 1786, the Abbe Manesse published a Treatise on the man- 

 ner of stuffing and preserving animals and skins, which con- 

 tained some very useful directions ; but as the Abbe exclud- 

 ed the use of poisons, and trusted chiefly to alkaline prepara- 

 tions, the affinity of these for moisture soon destroyed the 

 lustre of the preparations, particularly of birds. In the Me- 

 moir of Mauduyt for preparing birds for collections, his atten- 

 tion seems chiefly to have been directed to the destruction of 

 the parasital insects which feed on such preparations. Fumiga- 

 tion of sulphur he found very efficacious for this purpose ; but 

 the use of this mineral, while it had the desired effect in this 

 respect, totally destroyed the skins themselves. Daubenton, 

 adopting the use of sulphur in the Museum of Natural History 

 at Paris, found that the sulphurous vapour changed the red 

 into a dirty yellow, blackened the blue colours, soiled the cases, 

 and even burnt the upper parts of the more delicate specimens. 

 In 1 802, M. Nicholas, a chemist, and M. Henon, published works 

 on Taxidermy, the first, after detailing the previous modes, re- 

 commending a soapy composition and a tanning liquor to be used 

 in mounting the specimens. The oil of turpentine is the chief 

 article trusted to by the latter. But the first method, excluding 

 poisonous ingredients, was not found to answer completely ; and 

 turpentine has been found to injure the colours. M. Dufresne, 

 whose great experience in the Museum at Paris makes his ob- 

 servations of consequence, finds the arsenical soap invented by 

 M. Becceur, an apothecary of Metz, indispensable. 



