Auo. 26, 1893.] 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



161 



bear._ The bears are none of the "little fellows for a 

 dime" which one finds in the Eastern woods, but a ver- 

 itable full-grown bruin with "blood in his eye" and chip 

 always on shoulder. 



A week in these high altitudes is a week of pure de- 

 light. Far from aU signs of civilization, in the depths of 

 nature's wildest solitudes one throws away the cares of 

 life and the busy world and lives. 



High above tower the rugged mountain peaks, their 

 scarred and wrinkled faces showing plainly the ravages of 

 time. Below deep caiions and gorges with steep, precipi- 

 tous sides to which cling the sturdy spruce. Far, far 

 below one catches the murmur of the distant stream as it 

 tumbles along over rocks and fallen timber, and from be- 

 tween the dense growth of cottonwoods which fringe its 

 banks it flashes like a ribbon of silver. 



Such are a few of the attractions the moimtains con- 

 tinually hold forth to the lover of nature, and dull indeed 

 must be he who feels the cool, inviting wind from above 

 and does not respond to its prompting, or at least feel the 

 desire to do so. 



Let us now turn toward the lower lands to the south. 

 How different! How unlike the same country! Mount- 

 ing your good horse, you start out along a well traveled 

 highway bounded on both sides by ranches whose fair 

 level fields stretch out from hill to hill, covering the 

 entire bottom of the broad valley. Gradually these 

 ranches grow fewer, leaving spans of rough land un- 

 fenced, and as you advance they become more and more 

 primitive. Then the valley draws together and the till- 

 able land narrows down to a small strip along the banks 

 of the stream. Finally you pass one shabby little cabin, 

 the fences disappear, you no longer travel a well-worn 

 road, but only a trail marks your w-ay, the last sign of 

 civilization is passed and you are entering a deep narrow 

 canon, with only the rocks and trees for landmarks. You 



FIG. 1. ■WILD TnBKES. 



Meleagris gallopavo. 



are on the Indian Reservation and beyond the land of the 

 white man 



The trail is grandly picturesque, now winding in among 

 the-heavy growth of cottonwoods upon the river's bank, 

 and now mounting the sides of the canon climbing over 

 huge blocks of rock dropped ages ago from the towering 

 cliffs above. Then again the trail leads out on to some 

 little flat of land covered with the pinon and sage brush, 

 the latter silvery green and throwing out its strong^ 

 aromatic odor, bringing to vou a realization that you are 

 in a different land from old New England— that land of 

 your boyish dreams, the wild West. From the fancies 

 which thoughts of home bring up you are aroused by a 

 call from one of your companions, and you see. by 

 following the direction of their pointing arms, a 

 little wall of rock way up under some overhanging 

 cliff. Only a little wall of masonry, with one or two 

 square holes left therein, but it brings a feeling of awe 

 as you realize that you are looking upon the handiwork 

 of a race which passed away hundreds of years ago, 

 dead and gone, leaving no record of their living ex- 

 cept the si>ecimens of then- cunning workmanship. It 

 is an ancient cliff dwelMng hundreds of feet above the 

 present level of the stream. Leaving your horses tied 

 to some pinon trees, you climb and scramble up, up, 

 tUl exhausted and dizzy, you reach the narrow ledge 

 upon which this home of long ago is perched. Naught 

 there repays the climb, only some pieces of broken pot- 

 tery and the dwellmg itself, simplv a square wall of 

 masonry, built upon the narrow ledge of rock with the 

 overhanging cliff for a roof. After gazing for a time, 

 first at the house and then at the scene spread out before 

 you, and conjecturing again and again upon the kind 

 of beings these ancient people must have been, you 

 make the descent, how, you know not, only that breath- 

 less and scratched, you finally reach your horse, and with 

 a sigh of relief regain a seat in the saddle. 



For many miles the trail leads through tne cafion till 

 the great cliffs drop lower and lower, and it spreads out 

 into a broad plain. Vegetation is almost entirely gone. 

 Small clumps of white sage, an occasional bimch of blue 

 grass, some grease weed and the sharp spikes of the yucca 

 are aU. 



A jack rabbit jumps up seemingly from the ground, 

 makes a few leaps, stops, flicks his ears, a quiver passes 

 over his body, and the spot where he was is vacant and 

 only a streak of gray marks his flight. 



Just on the little rise of ground ahead a skulking form 

 is seen; it is the coyote, and the pistols are quickly brought 

 into action. You knock the dirt up about his feet, too 

 close for bis ppnifort; and he, too, vanishes from view. 



For miles m all directions stretches the plain, hot and arid, 

 till it melts into the distant blue of the mountain ranges 

 far to the southward. The sun sinks toward the horizon 

 and you hasten to a fringe of trees ahead, which marks 

 the course of the Rio San Juan. Entering a grove, you 

 make camp, and after a supper eaten with the relish that 

 days m the saddle bring, light the pipes and gather around 

 the blazing fire; for the warmth is grateful at night when, 

 the sun gone, the cool breeze comes down from the snow- 

 clad hills above; so you talk of the day's sights, and grad- 

 ually they drift into the reminiscences of other days. The 

 fire burns low, only now and then some ember, fanned by 

 the breeze, grlows with renewed life; a feeble blaze flickers 

 for a moment, lighting up the gloom for a small space 

 and showing the white branches of the cottonwoods over- 

 head like spectral arms stretching out, vainly trying to 

 grasp the fantastic shadows that dance about on the edge 

 of the lighted space. The distant howl of the wolf is 

 heard, answered by others from many sides. Reluctantly 

 you leave the glowing bed of coals and crawl between the 

 blankets, tired and sleepy and ready for the deep sleep 

 sure to follow. Jorge. 



MOUNTED GAME BIRDS IN THE U. S. 

 NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



BY DR. R. W. SHT7FELDT. 



With the view of submitting a general report upon the 

 subject, I have for several months past been making a 

 very careful study of the collection of mounted animals 

 of all kinds, on exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution 

 and the United States National Museum at Washington, 

 D. C. It is now a well recognized fact to students of 

 taxidermy in this country that within very recent time 

 the progress of that art has been so substantial that it now 

 stands quite co-equal with its sister arts of painting and 

 sculpture. My studies have carried me into a considera- 

 tion of the various methods employed to preserve and 

 prepare for exhibition the groups which constitute the 

 great kingdom of the Invertebrata, and the accomplish- 

 ments along those lines have been especially satisfactory. 

 But this progress has been none the less gratifying in 

 respect to the fishes, the reptiles and batrachians, the 

 birds, the mammals, even including man himself. So 

 broad is this field, however, that it will be impossible 

 within the limits of this article to touch upon more than 

 a very limited part of it, and in selecting that part I have 

 endeavored to choose a subject of the widest interest, and 

 I believe it will be admitted that our game birds studied 

 from any point of view interest a host of readers among 

 us. I have not been actuated altogether by this, how- 

 ever, for in studying the exhibit of the ornithological 

 department of the U. S. National Museum, I find that it 

 is among the so-called game birds that progress is perhaps 

 the best shown. This is largely due to the fact that the 

 game birds were the kind which were being mounted at 

 the time the museum added to its taxidermical depart- 

 ment at least one or two artists of great skill and talent, 

 and so it was here that improvement was first evident. 



Now the game birds I propose to allude to here are such 

 of the sub-order GaUince, as include the family of grouse 

 and partidges (Tetraonidce), and the turkeys, which be- 

 long to the sub-family Meleagrince, of the family Phasi- 

 anidce, which in a broad sense includes the pheasants and 

 their kin. This to the exclusion of the water game birds 

 of any kind whatsoever, and the guans {Cracidce) and 

 pigeons, etc. 



When we come to study the old collections of the orni- 

 thological department of the Smithsonian we are con- 

 fronted with a most remarkable series of avian effigies. 

 There are wild turkeys that are wild in more senses than 

 one. Prepared by some unskilled taxidermist, a quarter 

 of a century or more ago, they are at this writing a sorry 

 lot to behold, with plumage all awry, wires exposed, 

 body distorted, and, worst of all, such heads! One speci- 

 men, which I particularly have in mind, has had, by way 

 of a change, all the feathers on the back of his neck 

 drawn round to the front, and the skin of his head 

 stretched so tight that every character has been oblit- 

 erated from it by its drum-head tenseness. Then the 

 somewhat over-patriotic taxidermist, to add insult to in- 

 jury, has blotched this part of the poor bird's body all 

 over with small isolated patches of red, white and blue 

 paint, to imitate, I presume, the beautiful, varying colors 

 of an old gobbler's head. But the turkeys were not the 

 only sufferers among the game birds at the hands of those 

 early taxidermists, for we find in the cases some miser- 

 able-looking moor cocks, a motley lot of fantastic pheas- 

 ants, some queer-looking quail and a host of their kin. all 

 pretty much in the same shape. 



Of recent years, however, taxidermy has taken a great 

 stride in advance, and has passed from the stage °of a 

 botch trade of bu-d-stuffing into the realm of an art, quite 

 on the same plane with that of painting and of sculpture. 

 This progress has been most beneficially felt at the 

 Government museums at Washington, and for several 

 years past, by the wise appointment of young and talented 

 men at the institution, a great change has been wrought, 

 and it is not at all likely that we shall ever see there 

 again any backsliding on the lines indicated. So far as 

 the ornithological department is concerned, some of tlie 

 best work put in is to be noticed, perhaps, among the 

 group we have here imder consideration. A moment ago 

 I was speaking of the sorry lot of mounted turkeys there 

 were in the exhibition cases, and now these doleful-look- 

 ing specimens are made to look more disreputable by the 

 appearance among them of one or two pieces preserved 

 according to the most improved methods known to the 

 art. Turkeys' heads nowadays, instead of being simply 

 skinned and allowed to dry, as formerly, are modeled in 

 clay, over which the parts are most perfectly restored in 

 wax. This latter is so naturally tinted and' besprinkled 

 with the hair-like feathers which normally occur in that 

 region, that the effect is the most life-Uke that can possi^ 

 bly be imagined. They look for all the world the counter- 

 parts of the living birds, and I especially admire one old 

 gobbler recently mounted for the museum by Mr. Henry 

 Denslow, who has also done some admirable work in the 

 American Museum of Natural History, at Central Park, 

 New York city. 



Another very fine turkey has been ■ mounted for the 

 National Museum by Mr. Nelson R. Wood, of the museum's 



workshops, and I am permitted to give an excellent 

 figure of it here in illustration, taken from a photograph 

 made for me at the gallery of the institution in question 

 (Fig. 1). This old male bird has been preserved in a.n 

 attitude of having just completed, or being just about to 

 complete, a "strut." His elegant plumage is naturally 

 elevated, the wings are lowered to the ground, the tail is 

 spread and held obliquely, and, indeed, not a single point 

 overlooked that characterizes this grand fowl when he 

 assumes the position of strutting. It is one of the most 

 artistic and withal the most successful pieces of bird 

 taxidermy that I have ever seen, or with which I am 

 acquainted. 



All the other si^ecimens of game birds figured in this 

 article were preserved by Mr. Denslow, to whom I have 

 already referred above — with the single exception, I be- 

 lieve, of the dusky grouse, which I think is the work of 

 Mr. Wood. Another very fine thing we have to notice is 

 the specimen of the English pheasant shown in Fig, 2, It 

 is an old male bird in full spring plumage, and he has 

 been most artistically mounted in a i^osition very com- 

 monly assumed by that species. Standing upon one foot, 

 he gracefully surmounts a high perch, much as he would 

 some elevated point in his native haunts, from which, as 

 he is shown doing here, he can survey at his leisure such 

 objects as may attract his attention in the surrounding 

 country spread out beneath him. The poise; the evident 

 feeling of security; the observing look, and, in fact, every- 

 thing pertaining to this pheasant have most admirahly 

 and artistically been wrought out. As in the case of the 

 turkey just described, it is the accomplishment of a close 



Fig. 3. Enolish Pheasant. 



student in the art, and the work of a master-hand — and 

 so, a master-piece. To obtain the proper attitudes and pos- 

 tures for all birds of this kind, and indeed for any kind 

 that is to be scientifically mounted for museum exhibition, 

 constitutes one of the chief aims of the taxidermist, and 

 one of the most important parts of his professional labors. 

 There are several main lines of research from which he 

 derives his hints of this natm-e. He may depend upon a 

 close study of the positions assumed by birds that he has 

 from time to time the opportunity to observe, either in 

 their natural haunts or in zoological gardens or in cages, 

 and all such observations can be preserved and the memory 

 materially assisted by the aid of sketches made upon the 

 spot. Then again the taxidermist can resort to the use of 

 the photographic camera armed with an instantaneous 

 and time shutter. Good photographs of living birds in 

 natural positions and bereft of all superflous surroundings, 

 stand, in my opinion, head and shoulders above any other 

 kind of aid in this direction that the taxidermic artist can 

 obtain. 



To this subject the present writer has given some Uttle 

 attention, and the chief requisite demanded, next to a 

 thorough knowledge of the use of the camera in all its 

 varied departments, is a familiarity of birds' habits, and 

 a stock of tact and patience sufficient to supply a thoasand 

 men with that quality in the ordinary pursuits of life.. 

 Finally the taxidermist in some cases may rely upon the 

 figures and plates that illustrate our larger and standard 

 works upon ornithology. Audubon, for example, gives a 

 great number that are good; Wilson not nearly so many; 

 Brehm's superb figures, and those in Wood's Popular 

 Natural History, with a gi-eat many others, are all useful 

 for the purpose indicated. But it must ever be borne in 

 mind that with respect to all manner of prints, sketclies 

 and photographs, they represent the bird on the flat, and 

 not the round, and to be above all criticism, a well- 

 mounted specimen of a bird must show normal contours 

 of every part of its body, from whatever point of view we 

 may select to regard it. 



[TO BE CONTINUED.] 



A Happy Event. 



Forest and Stream last week celebiated the completion of its 

 fortieth volume, the rormding out of twenty years of sturdy and virile 

 growth. In the press of America our esteemed con ten ipoiary occu- 

 pies ac enviable position, and the lovor of all manly outdoor sport, 

 from yachting and canoeing to the company of rod, ^nn and dog, can 

 find among its pages jusiwhat he wants to read about, written by 

 men whom he involuntarily feels a friendship for, tliout;h he may not 

 know them. The paper is worthy of its success, and .Mr. Charles Hal- 

 lock, whose genial portrait adorns last week's issue, is to be heartily 

 congratulated on he development of his conception in founding it, -~ 

 Marine Journal, * 



