PE ALE'S MUSEUM 231 



ghastly tatooed head, a manufactured South American Mermaid — half fish and 

 half hairless dried monkey — , innumerable alcoholic preparations, also an 

 embryo shelf with animal and human foetuses. 



In 1805 Peale started to write a book called " A Walk with a Friend 

 to the Philadelphia Museum." 7 This seems never to have been finished 

 and was never published. A comparison of the above account of Mr. 

 Sellers with that of Peale shows that on the whole the same specimens 

 were on exhibition as in the days that Mr. Sellers recorded; never- 

 theless there was a lack of sensational attractions in 1805. As an 

 instance of this may be mentioned the fact that the monkeys at work 

 were not added until 1809, a year after Peale retired to his German- 

 town farm. The two-headed calf was not added for some years after 

 that. 



In " A Walk with a Friend " Peale writes about the quadruped 



room, and it is of interest in relation to modern methods of taxidermy : 

 The door opens to us and behold a multitude of animals fills the room on 

 every side. They seem to be in characteristic attitudes; the Lama of South 

 America is rearing up in the act of spitting through the fissure of his upper 

 lip. . . . 



The muscles of this as well as many of these quadrupeds are so well repre- 

 sented that painters might take them for models and all is so well preserved 

 that no insects can destroy them; a thing too generally the case in other 

 museums. 



The Proprietor has invented a mode of mounting them which I believe was 

 never practised before. As the muscles can not be preserved to keep their 

 natural plumpness nor can it be expected that the most careful operator can 

 stuff skins in the common way to preserve perfectly the true form more espe- 

 cially of animals that have not an abundance of hair or fur — the limbs of these 

 have been carved in wood; closely imitating the form after the skins had been 

 taken off; giving swell to the muscles proportional to their action so that, in 

 fact, they are statues of animals with the real skin to cover them — -a stupendous 

 labour originating from and effected by an enthusiastic desire of exhibiting a 

 series of real forms as they exist in nature. . . . 



Besides the methods of taxidermy as practised by Peale, there was 

 another equally striking innovation. We have seen that there was a 

 large frame illustrating Linnseus's classification of birds. To aid the 

 inquiring visitor much information of general interest was contained in 

 similar frames. In the Mammoth Eoom on the wall beside the skeleton 

 of the Mastodon, Eembrandt Peale's " Historical Disquisition on the 

 Mammoth " was framed page by page. By reading this account and by 

 referring to the skeleton and to the paintings Peale intended that his 

 visitors should have the opportunity of becoming well informed. These 

 were points the importance of which were emphasized by Brown Goode 8 

 many years afterward. 



7 Manuscript in the Pennsylvania Historical Society. 



8 See Brown Goode, " Museum History and Museums of History," 1889, 

 p. 267. 



