"The great Master (Cuvier) in whose dissect- 

 ing rooms, as well as in the public galleries of 

 Comparative Anatomy, I was privileged to work, 

 held, that ' species were not permanent : ' and 

 taught this great and fruitful truth, not doubt- 

 fully or hypothetically, but as a fact established 

 inductively on a wide and well-laid basis of 

 observation, by which, indeed, among other ac- 

 quisitions to science, Comparative Osteology had 



been created ... 



To suppose that co-existing differentiations 

 and specialisations, such as Equiis and Rhino- 

 ceros, or either of these and Tapirus, which 

 have diverged to generic distinctions from an 

 antecedent common form, to be transmutable 

 one into another, would be as unscientific, not 

 to say absurd, as the idea, which has been bol- 

 stered up by so many questionable illustrations, 

 and foisted upon poor 'working men,' of their 

 derivation from a gorilla ! ' ' 



—Richard Owen, F.R.S.—1S6S. 



"I must enter my protest against the singu- 

 larly imperfect form in which most of the speci- 

 mens in zoological and ornithological museums 

 are presented, owing to the low level at which, 

 speaking generally, the art of taxidermy re- 

 mains 



While in England good birdstutnng is rare and 

 very dear, in some continental cities, there are 

 to be found taxidermists who will stuff groups 

 of birds or animals in such a manner as to give 

 the most spirited representation of what they 

 were in life." 



—Professor W. H. Floiver.—iS6S. 



