[Publications for review should be sent to Dr. R. W. SHUF- 
ELDT, Associate in Zoology, Smithsonian Institution, Wash- 
ington, D. C.] 
PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED. 
Montacu Browne, F.G.S., F. Z. S.. etc. Artis- 
tic and Scientific Taxidermy and Modelling. 
Maemillan & Co., New York, 1896, pp. I-VILI, 
1-463, 22 half tn pls, 11 illus. in text, price $6.50, 
(From the Publishers.) 
Of late years it has become evident to those interested 
in museums, in museum-methods, and especially in the 
art of the preservation of animals, that there has been a 
a lively and general awakening to the fact that a new 
school of taxidermists were gradually replacing the old 
time ‘‘stuffer” and his apprentices. Ancient taxidermic 
methods and the production of animal effigies no longer 
satisfied people of taste or those who had any concep- 
tion whatever of the natural appearance of natural ob- 
jects in nature. Biologic knowiedge and artistic skill 
entered into the field and the exhibition cases in our 
museums containing specimens or groups of specimens 
of preserved animals soon felt the difference. With 
this growing improvement in the technique of taxidermy, 
came, fart fosu a new literature of the art, and the 
high-priced booklets containing but little or no informa- 
tion,gave way before the incoming of sizable volumes re- 
plete in detailed instruction, and minute accounts of the 
new methods employed. In this last category the 
recent work of Mr. Montagu Browne, curator of the 
Leicester Museum in England asks for a place and 
favor. So far as the present reviewer has been able to 
judge from notices of the work seen by him in prjnt,and 
communications he has received in regard to it, from 
both foreign and American taxidermists, it has not been 
accorded, asa volume, either of these much desired 
marks of recognition. And why? Not that there is 
to be found any fault with the literary execution of 
the book, or with the beauty of the volume and its 
plates as a whole, for both Mr.. Browne’s just claims 
to authorship, and the long recognized skill of the 
publishers would place anything of this nature at once 
beyond the pale of adverse criticism.—No, for on the 
other hand, its peculiar faults are of a far graver charac- 
ter, and the very fact that it is held at a high price, 
comes from a famous printing house,and the production 
of the pen of a distinguished contributor to the literat- 
ure of the taxidermic art, will for a long time lead 
many of the new recruits to the profession to believe 
that its methods are not only af the best, but are all 
that modern skill represents them to be. This how- 
ever, is by no means the case, for an advanced 
student of taxidermy of the present time, after a half 
an hour’s perusal of the volume, cannot fail but ap- 
preciate the fact as he places it aside, that in the 
matters of usefulness and instruction, it is a long way 
behind the age. They are Mr. Browne’s methods at Lei- 
cester, and the most of his methods are very bad ones 
indeed. Many, it is feared, will spend much time in 
mastering them, only to unlearn, later on, practices 
that can never lead to the best preservation of animals 
in their most natural attitudes and forms. Thus this 
pretentious manual can but retard the best progress of 
taxidermy, at the very time it most needed a helpful 
THE NIDOLOGiST 
143 
vciume;and it can only be hoped now thut as a remedy 
for this, it may soon run through its first edition, and 
that afterwards Mr, Browne will visit the taxidermical 
workshops of other lands and cities, and by so doing 
gain the opportunity (to be availed of in another 
edition) to point out really some of the solid advances 
in the art in which he justly takes so much professional 
pride. His ‘“‘tools used in taxidermy and modelling” 
(Plate IL) give one the idea that possibly they may 
have been picked up in a taxidermical workshop during 
the 17th Century; and the nearly roo formulae for kil- 
ling and preserving animals is quite as archaic, espec- 
ially as we read of red pepper, alum and musk being 
used as preservatives in the place of white arsenic. His 
chapter on ‘Collecting’ will be surely read,by American 
collectors at least, with more amusement than profit, 
for its author has apparently never so much as heard of 
the‘‘Cyclone trap’’ for sinall mammals, nor the 22 cal. 
“collecting canes’? and ‘‘auxilliary barrels” for birds, 
These oversights taken in connection withMr. Browne’s 
lengthy and time-absorbing method of putting up a 
bird skin,are simply extraordinary. Surely it would bea 
revelation to him to witness the performances of an expert 
American collector in the field in these days, where 
in a month, if fortune favors at all, he will collect and 
put up upwards of six hundred small mammals and bird 
skins, and these prepared and labeled in the best and 
most scientific manner. Just why Mr. Browne ignores 
the methods of making szammal skins it is hard to 
understand for he does not even refer to the matter 
anywhere in his book and surely it is a very important 
one for the taxidermist to know something about. 
To speak in the briefest terms possible, our author’s 
method of setting up a large mammal, say a tiger for 
example, is to cover a paper cast of the dead and flayed 
body of the animal with its preserved skin; and one of 
the results of this practice is shown in his Plate VI, 
where the ruination of two fine tigers and an elephant 
is graphically represented. Nothing in the entire range 
of taxidermy can be worse than to expect to reproduce 
the appearance ofa live, fighting animal by adjusting its 
skin over a cast of its dead body. It is no wonder that 
Mr. Browne has no use for photographic pictures of liv- 
ing animals, nor works upon their anatomy. As to his 
mode of mounting skeletons he is simply in the rear- 
guard of those knowing anything of this, extensive and 
difficult subject, nor does he propose to enlighten his read- 
ers by what little he does know, for we are informed that the 
“actual methods of wiring the bones together, and the 
preparation of ligamentary skeletons, are so much mat- 
ters of individual expertness that they need not be des- 
cribed, coming easily with a little experience.” (p. 162.) 
Passing all this we find many useful suggestions in 
his rules for the preservation of fish, and many marine 
invertebrates, while the chapters on the casting and 
modelling of flowers and plants generally, is a refresh- 
ing treat succeeding so much that must be considered as 
bad in the first part of the work, by any taxidermist at 
all familiar with the modern accomplishments of the 
science. At the close of the volume, a truly valuable 
Bibliography of Taxidermy etc.is given, for which 
many a student of the subject will be grateful. 
Erratum—In last month’s ‘‘Recent Publications,” 
last paragraph, read bibliography for ‘‘biography.” 
R. W. S. 
$$$ —__§_ 
The unexpected death of Lord Lilford occurred 
in England June 17, in his sixty-fourth year. 
Lilford Hall has a remarkable collection of living 
birds. Lord Lilford’s additions to the literature of 
Ornithology were numerous and of great value. 
