CASTOROLOGIA. I 87 



requirement may seem, it implies both patient work and vast 

 resources. To select typical specimens for the group presented here, 

 as an illustration of artistic taxidermy applied to the beaver, more 

 than a score of specimens were rejected, and a search extending over 

 two years accumulated only enough material to set this one group. 

 With regard to instructive labels and orderly arrangement, surely it 

 will never be permitted in the future to mark a case "For large 

 specimens generally'' under which the visitor is called upon to ad- 

 mire a sort of ' ' happy family ' ' composed of the most heterogenous 

 elements. 



Taxidermy, as a fine art, may be said to have originated in our 

 own day, though the ' ' science of preserving animal tissues ' ' dates 

 back centuries before the Christian era, when the Egyptians not only 

 mummified their kings and princes, but also embalmed both cats 

 and ibises with a thoroughness which was intended to withstand the 

 ravages of all time. A hundred years ago, taxidermy had scarcely 

 progressed beyond the idea of preserving the external tissues, for 

 surely the stufied caricatures 5'et to be seen*, were never meant to 

 convey a likeness of the living animal. 



There are still many opponents to pictorial or artistic taxidermy, 

 but arguments must be based on other grounds than those of public 

 instruction, for on this point no difierences of opinion could exist. 

 The difference between the display of artistic taxidermy and that 

 which is not artistic, suggests the title of a recent paper by W. Stanley 

 Jevons, M.A., IvI^.D., F.R.S.,— " The Use and Abuse of Museums." 



The history of the beaver has been told ; but to illustrate it, can 

 there be any comparison between the specimens which have fur- 

 nished a still-life study to the artist who engraved the frontispiece of 

 this volume, and the following sketches taken in public museums in 

 Europe ? The Rev. H. H. Higgins speaking of the Free Public Mu- 

 seum, I^iverpool, ' ' under the charge of its excellent curator, Mr. T. 

 J. Moore, Corr. Mem. Z.S.I/.," says, " In a public museum, ought it 



* In the Natural History Museum of Edinburgh , Scotland, mammals collected by Samuel 

 Hearne in America, just a century ago, are still exhibited. 



