80 Zoology, 



badly. During the thirty years that they have been under my 

 care, many have been attacked by small mites (in spite of the 

 camphor-laden atmosphere of the cases) and have fallen to pieces. 

 Notwithstanding all the efforts of the Museum taxidermists, it 

 has seldom been possible to dismount any specimens from the 

 Montagu Collection, and they have mostly been transferred 

 bodily to the cabinets of skins. Owing to the specimens having 

 no preservative, many of them, especially the fat and heavy ones, 

 fell to pieces from their own weight in course of time. This was 

 regrettably the case with the British-killed Great Bustard (Otis 

 tarda) which collapsed a few years ago. 



The method of preserving specimens in Montagu's time can 

 best be imagined by reading the "short directions" given by Johann 

 Beinhold Forster, " for collecting, preserving, and transporting 

 all kinds of Natural History Curiosities." These directions are 

 appended to Forster's " Catalogue of the Animals of North 

 America, containing an Enumeration of the known Quadrupeds, 

 Birds, Reptiles, Fish, Insects, Crustaceous and Testaceous 

 Animals ; many of which are new and never described before." 

 This scarce little pamphlet was published in 1771 by Benjamin 

 White, Gilbert White's eldest brother, at "Horace's Head, in 

 Fleet Street." A reproduction of this pamphlet, from a copy in 

 Professor Newton's possession, was published by the Willughby 

 Society in 1882. 



It may be interesting to give Forster's " short directions " for 

 preserving a bird, as it explains the method in vogue in his time, 

 and it is not to be wondered at that specimens, so treated, decayed 

 in the course of a century : — " Birds must be opened at the vent, 

 their entrails, lungs, and craws taken out, washed with the 

 preparing liquor, strewed with the preparing powder, stuffed 

 with the prepared oakhum or tow ; their plumage kept clean 

 during the operation, sewed up with thread steeped in the 

 preparing liquor ; the eyes taken out, with the tongue, and both 

 places washed with the same liquor ; the mouth must be filled 

 with prepared tow in great birds, the eyes filled up with putty, 

 and, when dry, painted with oil-colour after the natural colour of 

 live birds, of the same species, and then dried in an oven ; how T - 

 ever, as there is all the meat on the bird left, care must be taken 

 not to take too plump or too fat birds, and dry them slowly under 

 the same precaution as mentioned No. 1 [Quadrupeds]. The 

 operation must be repeated till the bird be perfectly dry. The 

 attitude may be given to the bird before he be put in the oven, 



