378 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



contribution on the same subject in the Cambridge Natural 

 History, we feel that these lowly organized creatures are at 

 length receiving adequate treatment. 



Dr. Paul Pelseneer, in his necessarily larger contribution on 

 the Mollusca, has pursued a similar treatment of his subject, 

 which he has divided into the sections Amphineura, Gastropoda 

 Scaphopoda, Lamellibranchia, and Cephalopoda. It has often 

 been asserted that there were conchologists who devoted their 

 whole study to the outside covering or shell of the species which 

 they collected, and should such specialists find time or inclination 

 to investigate the nature of the living animal itself, Dr. Pelseneer 

 will at least prove a not inefficient guide. 



Practical Taxidermy : a Manual of Instruction to the Amateur 

 in Collecting, Preserving, and setting up Natural History 

 Specimens of all kinds, dec. By Montagu Browne, F.Z.S., 

 &c. Second Edition. L. Upcott Gill. 



Taxidermy, in some form or other, if not an ancient art, 

 was at least an early practice. Besides the Egyptian mode of 

 embalming to which Mr. Browne refers, we are told by Gibbon, 

 that according "to the voice of history,'' on the death of the 

 Koman Valerian, Sapor's illustrious prisoner, "his skin, stuffed 

 with straw, and formed into the likeness of a human figure, was 

 preserved for ages in the most celebrated temple of Persia." 

 Animal effigies, for they could be called by no other name, must 

 have had considerable influence in inculcating an early know- 

 ledge of Zoology, as well as the living wild animals imported for 

 the purposes of imperial holidays. A Zoology without the 

 practice of Taxidermy or animal preservation, is the science 

 independent of museums and private collections, and valuable as 

 field observations are, and recorded perhaps nowhere with greater 

 alacrity than in the pages of this Journal, students still require 

 both the living and the dead. Moreover, the love of Zoology is 

 not always combined with the qualifications of Midas, and a 

 knowledge of the art is necessary for the collector with a moderate 

 income at home, as well as for the travelling naturalist abroad. 

 Taxidermy is now an art, a thing of joy to the naturalist as he 

 examines those beautiful cases of British Birds in our National 



