THE NIDIOLOGIST. 



After supper we prepared for a stormy 

 night, placing rocks and stones around the 

 tent to shelter us. During the night a 

 heavy thunderstorm came on, but our 

 waterproof tent stood it all right, and next 

 morning we had beatiful cool, bright 

 weather, so we again crossed over to the 

 island and found two clutches of Spotted 

 Sandpiper and another Gadwall's nest con- 

 taining eleven fresh eggs. We also saw 

 Bonaparte's, Franklin's and Herring Gulls. 

 Dippie shot a White-winged Scoter, and as 

 we noticed several on the lake we con- 

 cluded they were breeding in the vicinity 



(To BE CONTINUED.) 



Recent Publications. 



SCIENTIFIC Taxidermy for Museums. 

 By R. W. Shufeldt, M. D. Report 

 United States National Museum for 

 1892, pp. 369-436. Plates XV-XCVI.— 

 The great progress that has been made in 

 recent years in the art of taxidermy is 

 clearly and instructively shown in Dr. 

 Schufeldt's paper, which was prepared at 

 the request of the National Museum, and is 

 based upon a study chiefly of the govern 

 ment collections. The paper does not go 

 into the details and complete mechanical 

 manipulations employed by earlier and later 

 taxidermists, nor is it a "guide" or 

 ''manual" of the art which is dated back 

 five hundred years before Christ by cour- 

 tesy to Hanno, the Carthaginian, who col- 

 lected skins of the gorilla; yet the scope of 

 the paper includes a subject which has been 

 only touched upon by other writers, and is 

 here treated in a full and instructive 

 manner, with quotations and complete ex- 

 tracts from writings not accessible to man}^ 

 taxidermists of today. From the gelatine 

 casts (illustrated) of an octopus, and plaster 

 casts of fishes and reptiles through birds; 

 showing examples of good and faulty taxi- 

 dermy in individuals and the highest per- 

 fection yet attained in groups of birds, 

 with accessories, forming an unpainted 



picture of still-life — a section from nature 

 made beautiful and lasting forever — all 

 there but motion and song. Thence on to 

 mammals, singly and in groups, as they 

 appear today in the museums of this 

 country. Huge special pieces, like Horna- 

 da5''s elephant, Richardson's rhinoceros, 

 and the more recentl}' completed walrus by 

 Palmer, standing as monuments to the art 

 ot taxidermy, the artists who re-created 

 them and the institutions which have fos- 

 tered the art and science of taxidermy. 

 Such grand results in a few years of pro- 

 gress reflect credit upon all connected 

 therewith. It is almost incomprehensible 

 that with the communications between 

 San Francisco and Washington the Acad- 

 emy of Sciences should throw away a 

 golden opportunity to secure the second 

 good walrus in the whole world and in 

 sheer, brutal ignorance prepare and place 

 on exhibition an upholstered skin, dripping 

 oil, and monstrous in its hideous propor- 

 tions and anatomical errors from want of 

 light from the East and the intelligence to 

 receive it. 



A considerable portion of Dr. Shufeldt's 

 paper is devoted to birds, and will therein 

 appeal more strongly to our readers, who 

 have had before a glimpse in these pages of 

 the "Male Hornbill Feeding Imprisoned 

 Female" (Nid., February, 1894) ^"^ "The 

 Great Horned Owl" (Nid., Sept., 1894), 

 both examples of the modern tendency to 

 realism. It would be impossible to mention 

 all the illustrations of birds and do justice 

 to them, but we are able to present some of 

 the plates of most interest to the Oologist. 

 Here it seems proper to urge more the use 

 of the camera as a necessary part of the 

 outfit of every field collector. You may 

 take home not only the nest and eggs but 

 the entire vicinit}^ with you, and to your 

 accounts of the nesting of birds add the 

 illustration of the situation of the nest. 



Mr. Ed. Mcllhenny, of New Iberia, La., has re- 

 cently returned from a summer outing among the 

 birds on the Labrador and Greenland coasts. 



