TAXIDERMY AND MODELLING 



Again, he says : ^ — 



The oldest work in my collection is a Natural History published 

 at Paris by the Royal Academy in 1687, on the dissection of various 

 animals. In this work mention is made of the fact that the Hollanders 

 were the first to bring into Europe live specimens and skins of the 

 cassowary and a number of other strange birds which they secured on 

 their first voyages (1517) to the Indian archipelago. These were 

 stuffed at Amsterdam. 



It must be conceded that to the writings of educated 

 naturalists, who were often medical men, we owe the genesis of 

 the present methods of mounting animals. So far, however, as 

 can be at present ascertained, one of the earliest writers upon, and 

 exponents of, this delightful art was Rdaumur, who, in 1748, 

 published a treatise on preserving skins of birds. From that 

 date onward, the growing importance of the subject has continu- 

 ously produced a large mass of literature relating to it, of which 

 a bibliography — by no means complete, owing to the difficulty 

 of exhaustively cataloguing various treatises scattered in the 

 pages of current literature, — will be found at the end of this 

 volume. Of the works there enumerated, some are written by 

 practical men for practical men and beginners ; very few, less 

 than can be counted on the fingers of one hand, by educated 

 men who were also workers ; the great majority are mere 

 compilations. 



There is no doubt that some of the works mentioned in 

 the bibliography, especially those written by such men as the 

 Abb6 Manesse, Waterton, and Captain Thomas Brown, gave a 

 great impetus to taxidermy ; but unfortunately, although those 

 writers knew enough to be dissatisfied with their own and 

 others' work, yet their processes were, except in rare instances 

 (to be considered later), founded upon ancient methods which 

 had no definite rules, but left almost everything to the fancy 

 ' Methods in the Art of Taxidermy, Historical Introduction, p. iv. 



