TAXIDEEMY. 



The late Arthur Strickland, of whom Waterton speaks in 

 such high praise as to say that " he had more orthodox orni- 

 thology in his little finger than most of our mighty closet 

 naturalists have in their entire carcass,' ' and that his collec- 

 tion of British birds was without a rival ; never would ha^e 

 his birds stuffed, keeping the skins in drawers. 



Many years ago, when he was showing me his collection, 

 I rather wondered to find that the skins had only just enough 

 cotton wool in them to keep them slightly open, but soon found 

 that he was right. Could he have put them all under Water- 

 ton's magic fingers he would have been glad enough that they 

 should be " set up," but he was too good a naturalist to entrust 

 them to ordinary bird- stuffers. 



In the chapter added to the Wanderings, and to be found on 

 page 335, Waterton gives the first account of the art which he 

 created, and even with the aid of those few pages, any one 

 with ordinary intellect, a thorough knowledge of the animal, 

 and a fair acquaintance with anatomy, especially that of the 

 skeleton, would be able to produce specimens of taxidermy 

 far superior to those which are ordinarily to be found in 

 museums. But art must be progressive, and as he gained ex- 

 perience Waterton was perpetually discovering improvements 

 in taxidermy. Most of these improvements are given in one 

 or two portions of his Essays, the principal part of which 

 will presently be extracted. 



K E 



