6i 

 ON ARRANGING MUSEUM CASES FOR BIRDS. 



T. SHEPPARD, M.Sc, F.G.S. 



It would be a great advantage to everybody if taxidermists 

 would adopt some definite plan for the cases they make. At 

 present there seems to be no system whatever. A bird, taken 

 to the average ' stuffer,' is inserted in a wooden box, the 

 height, depth and width of which varies according to the 

 taxidermist's idea, or lack of idea, or according to the size 

 of a particular board he may have in stock. In addition, 

 the ' decoration ' of the case depends, as a rule, upon the 

 odds and ends that happen to be in his den ; thus the glass 

 may be edged with coloured paper, a strip of gold picture- 

 framing, mahogany, or may be left black. This system, or 

 lack of system, certainly lends variety ; but when a number 

 of such cases are brought together, the result reminds one 

 of the patch-work quilts in which our grandmothers used to 

 take such pride. In visiting a collection of local birds in 

 a small Yorkshire Museum a little while ago, this need for 

 uniformity was especially apparent. Most of the cases cer- 

 tainly were edged with black, but the mixture of mahogany, 

 gold strips, etc., suggested that a good supply of black paint 

 would do much to create harmony. In addition, the irregular 

 shapes of the cases made the grouping exceedingly irregular, 

 so that the top was castellated, and in the distance repre- 

 sented the appearance of some ruined castle wall. 



Another fault is the want of method in decoration. Some- 

 times a case is painted or papered throughout with a 

 monotonous grey, light brown, blue, or even yellow colour. 

 If they are all alike, the effect is not so bad, especially if 

 the colour is a good light blue. But usually they are not. 

 Then the average ' stutter ' delights in perching his bird oa a 

 composition twig, wrapped with faked lichen, with here and 

 there a little sheaf of ' trembling-grass,' or other vegetal 

 monstrosity. The ' back-ground ' is decorated by a pair of 

 butterflies in impossible attitudes, or, if the specimen happens 

 to be a shore-bird, the foreground is glued over with absurd 

 pieces of sea-weed, coralline, and varnished mussels, cockles, 

 periwinkles and whelks. At times, the amateur hand tries 

 to play the part of Nature, and the back of the case is painted 

 with volcanoes, crags, lakes, etc., which certainly at times 

 is advantageous, as it takes the eye away from the specimen 

 itself, which, if ' a neagle or a nawk or a nowl,' or worse still, 

 a bittern, usually looks at the visitor with a forbidding and 

 wooden stare from its usually too-large black eyes. 



On the question of the postures of the birds, however, it 

 is not now proposed to speak. The inexperienced but cheap 



1917 Feb. 1 



