16 PRACTICAL TAXIDERMY. 



From this era tlie English, artists, having had their eyes 

 opened by the teachings of the foreign exhibits of 1851, 

 steadily gained ground, and the Wards having the sense to 

 employ, in the first instance, foreign artistic workmen, 

 rapidly pushed to the front, until the finest animal study 

 of ancient or modern times was achieved by one of them — 

 the "Lion and Tiger Struggle," exhibited at Paris, and after- 

 wards at the Sydenham Crystal Palace. This, and one or 

 two analogous works, carried the English to the foremost 

 ranks of zoological artists; and now that we embellish our 

 taxidermic studies with natural grasses, ferns, &c., and with 

 representations of scenery and rockwork, in the endeavour 

 to carry the eye and mind to the actual localities in which the 

 various species of animals are found — an advance in art not 

 dreamed of fifty years ago — and also correctly model the heads 

 and limbs of animals, we still hold our own, and are as far 

 advanced in taxidermy as any other nation. 



