240 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. IV. No. 86. 



the Atlantic, but we pass on to the mounting 

 and casting of animals which occupies the body 

 of the book. It may be said here that the per- 

 sonal equation is quite as important a factor in 

 taxidermy as in other matters, and while the 

 author's advice and methods are mainly good 

 there are many points wherein it is impossible 

 to agree with him. Mr. Browne also takes it 

 too much for granted that specimens are to be 

 mounted fresh, whereas the majority of speci- 

 mens which come under the hand of the taxi- 

 dermist are dry skins, and only too often very 

 poor dry skins. Hence more detailed instruc- 

 tions for relaxing and cleaning dried skins 

 would have been acceptable. The various 

 groups of vertebrates are treated in order, con- 

 siderable space naturally being devoted to birds. 

 Here the criticism would be that the advanta- 

 ges of skinning birds through the side are slight, 

 the disadvantages numerous, and we would ad- 

 vise the taxidermist to open and mount his 

 birds by a median cut. Also, we consider that 

 mounting a bird with the entire skeleton inside 

 is a great waste of valuable time ; we have seen 

 it tried, and the result did not justify the time 

 and labor expended. In fact, the quality of the 

 finished work depends not so much on the 

 mechanical devices employed as on the artistic 

 eye and skilled hand of the workman. The 

 good taxidermist, any more than the artist, 

 needs not to build upon a skeleton, although a 

 knowledge of anatomy is indispensable to each. 



The method of mounting mammals over 

 paper casts is dwelt on with veritable enthu- 

 siasm, and although we have never seen it 

 practiced, it would seem to be a most excellent 

 plan for obtaining light and accurate specimens. 

 The paper cast is certainly most admirable for 

 copying cetaceans and large fishes, but the 

 reader will not find it so simple in practice as 

 it seems in theory, particularly if undertaken 

 in a damp climate. Also it needs as much skill 

 in this mode of mounting as in any other to 

 avoid stiffness in posing. 



The greater portion of the book, after the 

 chapter on birds, is given over to describing 

 various methods of moulding, casting or model- 

 ling fishes, reptiles, batrachians and inverte- 

 brates, and to the making of accessories, such 

 as flowers, leaves and rockwork. This, supple- 



mented by the recipes noted in the beginning, 

 contains some of the most valuable information 

 in the book, and will well repay study, since it 

 treats of extremely useful technical processes 

 which usually have to be learned from some 

 expert. It is a pity, however, that in treating 

 of flowers the reader is not told where he can 

 obtain the oft-mentioned ' Mintorn fabric,' or, 

 failing in this, advised to procure waxed cloth 

 from some dealer in artificial plants, or in the 

 materials for making them. 



Finally, there is a very full bibliography of 

 taxidermy, and last, but not least, an index. 



From what has been said it will be rightly 

 inferred that the value of this book lies not so 

 much in the portion devoted to taxidermy 

 proper as in that treating of other and related 

 subjects ; it can not supersede such a work as 

 Hornaday's Taxidermy, but it is nevertheless 

 indispensable to the preparator for its merits in 

 other lines. 



It may not be out of place to say that, to a 

 great extent, the pages of this book reflect the 

 changes that have taken place in museums dur- 

 ing the past few years. The time was when the 

 museum of natural history was almost wholly 

 for the scholar, the cultivation of the public 

 being quite a secondary consideration. Birds 

 and mammals were represented by more or less 

 poorly stuffed specimens, and anything of a 

 pictorial nature, or even the replacement of 

 colors or of soft parts, was religiously tabooed. 

 Now it is recognized that at least one of the ob- 

 jects of a public museum is to give the public 

 glimpses of living creatures as they really ap- 

 pear, and it is admitted that it is better to re- 

 place such appendages as combs and wattles, or 

 even to obscure the scales of a bird's foot with 

 paint, than to show the public dried, distorted 

 and dingy eflfigies. The visitor does not care to 

 count the scales on a snake's back nor the rays 

 of a fish's fin, but he does wish to know how 

 the living snake looks and in the gorgeous but 

 evanescent colors in which so many fishes are 

 decked. The shrivelled, faded and often im- 

 perfect spirit specimen may furnish taxonomic 

 facts to the naturalist, but the public should 

 have something else. 



F. A. Lucas. 

 U. S. National Museum. 



