TAXIDERMY AND MODELLING 



We may even presume that the earliest man — whose 

 existence is only known by the imperishable flint weapons he 

 fashiohed, and by the stains of his cave-fires — not only flayed 

 the various wild animals he overcame with his stone and 

 wooden implements for the sake of the clothing they afforded 

 him, but, perhaps, inflated or stuffed some of their skins with 

 grasses as " stales " or decoys, or used the skins as coverings 

 when stalking animals of the same species, and he may certainly 

 have used skins for many other purposes, and have prepared 

 them also, as savages of later days have done and still do. 



From these long-vanished peoples to the Egyptians and 

 Mexicans, with their methods of tanning the skins and em- 

 balming the bodies of their dead, and of cats, dogs, various 

 birds, and so on, is an easy step, and they were, probably, the 

 first " animal preservers," testimonies of whose work satis- 

 factorily performed are to be found in many museums. 



Dr. Shufeldt, of the United States National Museum, con- 

 siders that the supposed gorillas mentioned by the Carthaginian 

 navigator Hanno, B.C. 500, as having been killed and flayed 

 in Africa and afterwards conveyed to Carthage, where " they 

 were preserved for many generations, are, no doubt, the 

 Gorgones described by Pliny." ^ 



Supposing these to have been preserved merely as flat skins, 

 this would only mark the well-known fact that the ancients 

 were perfectly well acquainted with tanning ; indeed, this is an 

 art which every savage must know, to say nothing of such a 

 civilised people as the Carthaginians ; but if they, however 

 roughly, attempted to set up the skins, that would be indeed 

 the dawn of taxidermy as we understand the meaning of the 

 word. 



Little is known of the beginnings of the practice of the " stuffing " 

 or " setting-up " of animals for ornament or for scientific purposes ; 



^ Sep. Smithsonian Institution for 1892, p. 370. 



