PREFACE. Vll 



figure : he preserves the exact contour ; like Bewick he is a student 

 of Nature, and so has transferred to the inanimate skin, as Bewick to 

 the inanimate wood, all the attributes of life that can exist without 

 absolute vitality : and, moreover, he never fails to place a bird on its 

 centre of gravity, a trait in which he stands almost alone. But the 

 Wurtemburg stuffers have done more than this : they have given an 

 appearance of intense life to their birds : a brood of owls is threatened 

 by a stoat; the old ones swell with truly parental rage, and the nest- 

 lings stare with as truly infantine wonderment : it is as though the 

 whole group was fixed in a moment of motionless energy ; each indi- 

 vidual is on the alert, but pausing, and it is just such a pause as 

 might occur in nature : another owl spreads out his wings, ruffles his 

 feathers, and turns his head completely over his shoulder, anticipating 

 an attack from above : and a diversity of beings are, with a profound 

 and philosophical knowledge of nature, represented in that momen- 

 tary pause which must occur even in the midst of the most violent 

 excitement. Again, the " comical creatures," — how wonderfully, with 

 what truth, are these humanized copyists of humanity enacting their 

 parts ! How would ^Esop have luxuriated in such figures ! How 

 easily would the imagination endow them with the gift of speech ! 

 Mr. Hancock exhibited some excellent specimens of English stuffing : 

 amongst these " the bird-stuffers' sign," as it is called, the hawk, seal- 

 ing-wax and quarry, was beautifully rendered ; but Mr. Hancock al- 

 ways makes a little too much of a bird's neck; not more, indeed less, 

 than most professional bird-stuffers, all of whom exhibit a great weak- 

 ness for this feature: this universal error arises perhaps from too much 

 knowledge of the real structure ; even a sparrow's neck, when under 

 manipulation, is a serious affair, and the bird-stuffer is well acquainted 

 with the real neck, no one better ; and he can't imagine why it should 

 be suppressed: my answer is, that Nature suppresses it. She runs 

 the head and shoulders together in almost the whole of the Accipitrine 

 and Passerine tribes. Leadbeater's humming-birds and Bartlett's 

 Dodo (an historical fiction), must also be mentioned with unqualified 

 praise. 



