INTRODUCTION— ORIGIN AND PROGRESS 15 



necessary, the correct pose and arrangement only of the subjects 

 being aimed at ; otherwise a critical observer might take 

 exception to the fact that the tigers nearest the entrance were 

 ill-managed about the heads — the tongues, thickly painted and 

 exhibiting no papillae, being apparently made of slabs of some 

 material, probably clay (see p. 139), and the other parts of 

 the mouths being somewhat shrivelled and destitute of palatal 

 ridges and of large muscles around the teeth ; but, whilst the 

 mouths generally were bad, and the noses and the modelling 

 and arrangement of the eyelids not good, the eyes themselves 

 were excellent. Indeed, taking the mammals as a whole, with 

 the exception of the eyes, the faults of the ordinary taxider- 

 mist were apparent, and the impression they left was, that 

 there was too much paint and putty, and too little artistic 

 modelling by proper methods. 



Museum authorities never looked very cordially upon such 

 large groups, nor, indeed, upon anything of a pictorial nature, 

 and probably the first to take up the pictorial mounting of 

 birds was the small museum of Ludlow, sometime about 1870, 

 and the groups were arranged by one or the other of the 

 Shaws — excellent taxidermists — of Shrewsbury. 



About this time, a private museum of British birds was 

 founded at the Dyke Road, Brighton, by Mr. E. T. Booth — a 

 well-to-do sporting naturalist since deceased, — which created a 

 considerable impression. No scientific principles were involved 

 in the arrangement, only the truths of nature imitated by art. 

 The setting-up of the birds — all collected by the owner, 

 assisted by his wife — was of nearly uniform excellence, and 

 the accessories were almost uniquely managed. Such things 

 as robins in a woodyard, with chopper, chopping-block, glove, 

 and backed up by posts and ivy ; kingfishers with surroundings 

 copied from a small sluice in Shoreham harbour, the broken 

 posts and half-rotted hatch with seaweeds and a piece of rope ; 



