

Voi,. I. No. 4. 



ALAMEDA, CAL., DECEMBER, 1893. 



jOjNE Dollar 

 Per Year. 



ON 



RE-MOUNTING THE SPECIMEN 

 OF THE GREAT AUK. 



BY DR. R. W. SHUFBI,DT, M. A. O. U. 



For years that priceless specimen, one of 

 the greatest ornithological treasures of the 

 Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion, the Great Auk 

 ( Plautus impennis ) , 

 remained in the case 

 where it belonged in 

 that Museum, mount- 

 ed as shown in Fig. 

 I. It is safe to say 

 that no Auk in the 

 world ever stood 

 in so ^W/^ward an at- 

 titude — the one that 

 had been given it by 

 the taxidermist who 

 originally mounted 

 the bird. 



The neck was 

 stretched out to rather 

 more than its full 

 length ; the back was 

 nearly flat; but worse 

 than all, the unfortun- 

 ate fowl had been 

 made to stand with 

 its metatarsal joints 

 nearly perpendicular 

 to the ground, repre- 

 sented by the stand upon which it was 

 placed. Those who are familiar with good 

 drawings of the Great Auk, such as the 

 one given by Audubon, or the one by the 



FIG, I- 



present writer, given in the Century Maga- 

 zine (January 1886, p. 394), know full well 

 that that species would never have com- 

 monly assumed any such posture. On the 

 contrary, when on land, while the bird 

 stood erect, it at the same time rested upon 

 the back of the tarsi 

 and the soles of the 

 feet. Possibly, the 

 posterior extremity of 

 the body may also 

 have come in contact 

 with the ground. 



As the years rolled 

 by and taxidermy 

 passing through its 

 early crude stages to 

 arrive at the dignity 

 of an art, and, finally, 

 to that of a science, a 

 position now secured 

 for it by its most ad- 

 vanced students, a 

 piece of work like this 

 could not, in a great 

 museum, be daily 

 viewed, and no 

 thought entertained 

 of its rectification. 



Expert taxidermists 

 came to be employed 

 at the Smithsonian 



THE GREAT AUK, AS FIRST MOUNTED IN THE . . j -nt 



SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM. Institutiou and Na- 



tional Museum, and nian}^ of the gioss 



errors seen in the specimens mounted by 

 the old school " stufFers " were gradually 

 taken in hand and re-modeled. 



