b PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



the migration, but I do not remember that he made skins. He 

 just went out for the fun of it and gave his specimens to Krider 

 or to the Woods. I met Westcott at the Academy of Natural Sci- 

 ences in 1878, where he was making copies of various bird 

 pictures on plaques from several of the larger works of orni- 

 thology. He was among the first who imported the Laverack 

 setter into this country — a race of dogs bred in and in to such 

 an extent that they had become degenerate. Westcott' s famous 

 dog " Pedigree" had a wonderful nose, but in every other respect 

 was an idiot and quite useless in the field. 



Other Taxidermists 

 I remember once meeting in " Chris" Wood's shop an old 

 fellow named Ben Child who was a bird collector of the same 

 ilk. I knew nothing further about him except that "Chris" 

 seemed to regard him as an encroacher upon some of his collect- 

 ing haunts. On Ninth street above Arch, on the east side, was a 

 taxidermic shop kept by a man named Galbraith. He made 

 some very good-looking mounts, but I do not recall any skins. 

 My father purchased several mounted specimens from him as 

 models for paintings — one of them, a Meadowlark in excellent 

 pose, was the subject of a picture called, ' 'On the Alert ' ' . Among 

 other birds, which were used as the subjects of paintings, was a 

 Junco, a Blue Jay, a Baltimore Oriole, and a pair of California 

 Valley Quail {Lophortyx), all of which I fell heir to when father 

 had finished with them. I remember carrying the Baltimore 

 Oriole home from the studio in a bitter cold wind one afternoon 

 in February, the paper blew away and the specimen never quite 

 regained the original set of its tail feathers. This was some- 

 where about 1875. 



There was another taxidermist on Thirteenth street above 

 Market but I never knew him nor was in his shop. Dave Mc- 

 Cadden has kindly given me his business card which I insert 

 here as a specimen of the craft: 



