﻿174 I'll: I, I) AND FOREST. 



that a beautiful white skeleton can be obtained with but little trouble 

 and in a marvelously short space of time, but we can assure such per- 

 sons that as far as we know, no easy method has been discovered, as 

 it takes time, patience, and experience in manipulating the bones. 



An important item, one too, decidedly necessary to ensure success, 

 is a knowledge of the anatomy of the bird or the beast about to be 

 skeletonized. Our knowledge must be so exact, that if a bundle of 

 bones were placed in our hands each could be given its proper position, 

 and without this knowledge, it is folly to attempt a skeleton. We 

 must not omit informing our querists that their olfactory nerves will at 

 times be called upon to endure very disagreeable odors. Some per- 

 sons would perhaps draw up their faces at all this, while we hear in a 

 whisper, shocking ! Perhaps such persons would be equally shocked, 

 when informed that a skeleton teaches the striking analogy between 

 their finely formed arms, and hands, and the wings of birds and bats, 

 and further to the leg of a turtle, or the paddle of a whale. 



In making a skeleton, we are making a model explanatory of the 

 structural relationship between form and purpose. We are showing, 

 how, through the largely represented family of vertebrates, the one 

 great original type form is not departed from. We are making a link 

 which connects the forms of the present with the forms of the past ; 

 but not until we study the habits of the animal do we learn the adapt- 

 ation of those forms to his life wants. Truly a lesson in bones, is a 

 lesson in faith ; they are the visible forms of God's handy work, modi- 

 fied to suit the wants of his creatures. 



The question how do you make skeletons? can be followed by an- 

 other much more to the purpose. Can everyboby make skeletons ? 

 We should doubt it unless we might assert that everybody could paint 

 a dog equal to the "Old Shepherd's Chief Mourner." by Sir Edwin 

 Landseer, or oxen, like those in the "Ploughing in the Nivernois," 

 by Rosa Bonheur. But we cannot apply to everybody the well known 

 "emphatic French phrase, applied to Rosa Bonheur and her family, 

 'they possess their ox,' meaning that such possession can neither be 

 bought, nor inherited, but must be attained by sympathy, by love, by 

 labor. ' ' 



We regard a skeleton as a work of art, every bone must be made to 

 speak its own marvel. These must be a quiet expression of truthful- 

 ness in its every part, a certain embonpoint, though no longer in the 



