Xl8 MRS. maxwell’s den. 
became! Wire, hemp, cotton, and hay; clay, 
salt, plaster, and alum ; mosses, grasses, and 
branches of trees ; bars of iron, and blocks of 
wood ; palette, brushes, putty, and paints ; nests 
and eggs of birds, and fresh-water shells ; bottles 
of insects, and reptiles, glass eyes, and tools ; 
fossils, minerals, and bones of beasts ; heads and 
horns of buffalo, antelope, and mountain sheep ; 
birds’ skins, heads and antlers of deer and elk ; 
guns and ammunition; in fact, something of 
almost every created thing she could get in all 
stages of transformation and preservation ! 
To this castle of miscellanies all candidates for 
taxidermic immortality were brought, and before 
a year had passed its walls were picturesque with 
rows of various kinds of owls, looking down in 
unblinking solemnity on multitudinous perches 
filled with all manner of feathered neighbors, 
while the centre of the room was occupied with 
incomplete groups of beasts of all kinds and sizes, 
from a grizzly bear to a jumping mouse. 
“You fearful woman ! how can you have the 
heart to take so many lives ? ” was a frequent 
exclamation of Mrs. Maxwell’s lady friends, upon 
entering it. 
“ Oh,” she would laughingly reply, “ I suppose 
you think me very cruel, but I doubt if I am as 
much so as you! There isn’t a day you don’t 
tacitly consent to have some creature killed that 
