602 APPENDIX. 



guarded the nasal sinuosities ? Alas it has shrunk to nothing, caus- 

 ing the face of the bird to be as ugly as that of poor Deiphobus, 

 the Trojan, truncas inhonesto vulnere nares! Let us proceed onwards, 

 and take a view of the head. There is much that ails it. The 

 crown is wrong, the cheeks are wrong, the orbits are wrong, and the 

 ears are wrong. 



The skin, not dissected to where the beak emerges from it (al- 

 though it ought to have been), has dried upon the cranium. A 

 similar disaster is visible at the mandibles. The orbits, with their 

 inner skin still adhering to them (and which should have been cut 

 away), are distorted and irregular, and far too large ; whilst the fleshy 

 integuments at the ear, having no business to be left there, cause 

 the present forbidding appearance in that quarter. 



The " real principle of taxidermy " ought to have suggested to 

 the operator, that, in order to make these parts retain their pristine 

 appearance, there required minutest operations for many a day, 

 after the bird itself had been set up. Thus, for instance, had the 

 skin been effectually prevented from adhering to the jaw-bones, and 

 to the cranium ; had the orbits been subjected, day after day, to a 

 most delicate adjustment, the artificial eyes having been removed 

 each day to facilitate that adjustment; had the parts at the ear 

 undergone an entire dissection ; had the rotundity over the eyes, so 

 beautiful in life, been perfectly restored ; and lastly, had every indi- 

 vidual feather been arranged according to nature's unerring plan, 

 then, indeed, the admirer of her charming works would not have 

 had his nerves affected, and his eyes disgusted, by a spoliation of 

 plumage, and a deformity of physiognomy in this unfortunate pea- 

 cock, extending quite away from the nostrils to the neck. Cervantes 

 says, " quando la cabeza duele, duelen los miembros," that is, when 

 the head is out of sorts, so are the members. This I will show in 

 my next communication. I have the honour to be, sir, your obedient 

 servant, CHARLES WATERTON. 



