14 
WARD’S NATURAL SCIENCE BULLETIN. 
TAXIDERMY. 
Prices for Taxidermic Work. 
The taxidermists of this country are, almost 
without a single exception, very poorly paid for 
their work, and unless a vigorous stand is made 
they will always remain so. The prices now paid 
by the patrons of the art are, generally speaking, 
far below the value of really artistic work, con- 
sequently the average of work done is far below 
what it should be, and both artist and customer 
have reached the sticking point. The latter says, 
“Until I get better, work I will not pay higher 
prices,” and the former retorts, in self-defense, 
“ Until I am better paid for my work I cannot af- 
ford to spend any more time on it than I do now.” 
Both are right, but at the same time both are 
wrong, and the taxidermist is the sufferer. The 
first principle of a business is that a man must 
live. To do this, he must make a profit, ©n his 
work, and sometimes it seems necessary to do 
this even under the certainty of turning out poor 
work. Take, for example, the mounting of a 
deer head on a shield. Most taxidermists of my 
acquaintance charge $8 for the work and furnish 
the shield. The shield costs, let us say, $1.50, 
and the glass eyes fifty cents, which, not count- 
ing any further cost of materials, leaves the sum 
of $6 to pay for skinning a head, cleaning and 
thinning down the skin, preserving and mount- 
ing it “in the highest style of the art,” and per- 
haps boxing the head to send away by express. 
Only six dollars! 
To make even poor wages, all the work on 
that head from first to last must be done in two 
days, which yields to the taxidermist the very 
moderate sum of $3 per day for his work. And 
what is the result of actually accomplishing all 
the work indicated above in twenty hours? As 
sure as fate it is a poorly stuffed head, which has 
perhaps not even one anatomical feature correct 
to life. If any one doubts this assertion I ask 
him to place beside a deer head mounted for $T>, 
the head of a live deer, or one freshly cut from 
the dead animal. 
Let no one of my fellow workers take offense 
at the above, or consider it as intended to apply 
personally, for such is not the fact. I venture 
to assert that no man living can mount a deer 
head and do all the work necessary upon it with- 
in twenty hours, or even twenty-five, and make 
it look like life. It would be impossible for me 
to do it. Even in three days 1 cannot finish a 
head and give a long neck the exact shape and 
size it had on the living animal. To be sure, I 
could stuff a head as quickly as most taxider- 
mists, perhaps, but a head filled hastily with 
loose filling alone, with the nose twice as large 
as in life, the lips twice as thick, the cheeks 
twice as full, and the neck twice as large as it 
should be, with the eyes bulging clear out be- 
yond the orbit — a head so finished is only stuffed. 
It is not a work of art, it cannot add to a repu- 
tation, and it is only an additional weight upon 
the progress of the profession. The man who 
pays for such a head naturally regards it as the 
best the taxidermist can do, and he will natur- 
ally refuse to pay a higher price until he has seen 
better work. 
The point I- wish to make is this: Taxider- 
mists should study such living animals as they 
are likely to have in hand, regardless of what it 
costs, and then prove to their patrons, by a 
few pieces of elegant sample work, that they 
can make animals look like life. When this is 
done, put up the prices. Make them high, so 
that one can afford to lavish study and labor 
upon a specimen, and bring out its points of 
external anatomy. There are plenty of men 
who will pay a high price for work the moment 
they can b > assured it shall be as nearly perfect 
as human skill can make it. Charge at least 
$15 or $20 for mounting a deer head; spend 
three or four days upon it, and the piece will be 
sure to bring you others at the game price. Prove 
that for a high price you can turn out high- 
class work, and unless you wish to cut your own 
throat financially, refuse to do poor work in 
return for poor pay. The price for mounting a 
deer head in this establishment has been, up to 
this time, $12; but henceforth we hope that 
Prof. Ward will not talk of doing them in our 
very best style for less than $20 to $25, including 
shield. As'the quality of our work more nearly 
approaches perfection by the discovery of new 
methods and a closer study of living animals, we 
find it necessary to devote more time to them, 
and our work is able to command a higher price. 
The man who puts too low an. estimate either 
upon himself or his work, makes a great mis- 
take. Taxidermists injure themselves personally, 
and the profession generally, by leading people 
to suppose that work can be done for a mere 
song. It is impossible for a worker to turn out 
perfect work under such conditions. For in- 
stance, no man should agree to mount a pointer 
dog for less than $50, or a head for less than $15. 
A common cat should not be touched for less 
than $10. It is worth not less than $300 to 
mount a horse, and a prominent New York artist 
assured me that there are turfmen who will be 
ready to pay $500 whenever we prove to them 
that it is possible to have a trotter mounted 
whose attitude, form, size and muscular devel- 
opment shall be like those of the animal in life. 
This same artist asserted that nearly all the prices 
put upon the work in the Boston exhibition of the 
Society of American Taxidermists were too low. 
If we are to do better work than at present 
obtains, we must have better prices. If we do 
not first show what we can do when we try, we 
need not expect better patronage, and without 
this we cannot expect to make any marked ad- 
vancement. W. T. II. 
4 i » 
A Delicate Task. 
It is very seldom that an attempt is made to 
mount both the skin and skeleton of a bird, even 
of the largest size, and have both specimens 
complete and perfect in appearance. Almost 
anyone can appreciate the difficulty of skinning 
out all the bones from a bird’s legs, toes, wings 
and beak, and replacing them with artificial ones 
so carefully made and so successfully put in as 
to show no sign of the change. With a bird the 
size of an ostrich it is not so difficult a matter, 
but with a specimen of medium size it need hardly 
be characterized as a task requiring very delicate 
and skillful manipulation. One of our taxider- 
mists, Mr. Webster, has just finished mounting 
an African Jabiru ( Xenorjiynchus Senegalensis), 
from which he took the complete skeleton, and 
afterwards mounted the skin so successfully that 
the bird as it stands affords no visible evidence 
that a single bone is lacking. Last year Mr. 
Webster also mounted here a Hatteria, from 
which he took the entire skeleton, the only in- 
stance we know of wherein a saurian was made 
to furnish a perfectly mounted skeleton as well 
as skin. 
Man Boiled Down. 
The average number of teeth is 31, 
The number of bones in man is 240. 
The average weight of a skeleton is about 14 
pounds. 
The weight of the circulating blood is about 18 
pounds. 
The average weight of an adult man is 140 
pounds 6 ounces. 
The brain of a man exceeds twice that of any 
other animal of same size of skull. 
A man annually contributes to vegetation 124 
pounds of carbon. 
A man breathes about 20 times a minute, or 
1,200 times in an hour. 
One thousand ounces of blood pass through 
the kidneys in one hour. 
The skeleton measures one inch less than the 
height of the living man. 
A man breathes about 18 pints of air in a min- 
ute, or upwards of 7 hogsheads in a day. 
The average weight of the brain of a living 
man is 3j^ pounds ; of a woman, 2 pounds 1 1 
ounces. 
Five hundred and forty pounds, or one hogs- 
head 1 )4 pints of blood pass through the heart 
in one hour. 
The average weight of an Englishman is 150 
pounds ; of a Frenchman, 136 pounds, and of a 
Belgian, 140 pounds. 
CUSTOM WORK IN TAXIDERMY. 
Prices for Mounting Birds. 
Before presenting the following list of prices, 
I wish to say a few words in explanation. It 
should be understood that difficulty of mounting 
is not dependent entirely upon size, but to a con- 
siderable extent upon other conditions; and the 
several scores of forms enumerated have been 
chosen as being fairly representative of the dif- 
ferent values. The chief difficult}^ is with thin, 
tender skins, and consequent easy loosening of 
feathers; and with skins whose feathers are 
stained with grease or blood. The first require 
more care, and hence, more time, while with the 
latter, the cleaning of the feathers increases the 
work of mounting by a third or a half. This 
fact has been taken into account in making up 
these lists, and will explain any seeming incon- 
sistency in the arrangement. Keeping, as I do, 
a corps of trained taxidermists permanently in 
my employ, each thoroughly skilled in his own 
special department, I am enabled to mount satis- 
factorily skins which in ordinary hands would 
prove simply worthless. 
It has been my constant endeavor to raise the 
standard of my work as high as possible, and 
every piece receives the most careful attention. 
The choicest quality of eyes is used, and each 
specimen is mounted on a neatly turned black- 
walnut perch, or a pedestal of ash or black- 
walnut. — 
North American Birds. 
Wren, Humming Bird — wings closed, ...$ 1 00 
Humming Bird — wings spread, 1 25 
Sparrow, Warbler, Swallow, 1 25 
Oriole, Kingbird, Robin, Cuckoo, 1 50 
Blue Jay, Sparrow-Hawk, Quail, Killdeer 
Plover, Least Tern 1 75 
Screech Owl, Pie-billed Grebe, 2 00 
Crow, Pigeon, .. 2 25 
Kittiwake Gull, Blue-winged Teal, Black 
Guillemot, 3 00 
Ruffed Grouse, Cooper’s Hawk, Green 
Heron, 3 25 
Cormorant, Wood Duck, 4 00 
Mallard, Sage Grouse, Barred Owl, 4 50 
Great Horned Owl, Great White Egret, 
Brant Goose, 6 00 
Great Blue Heron, Loon,. 8 00 
Wild Turkey, Brown Pelican, Bald Eagle, 
$10 00 to 12 00 
Flamingo, .. 14 00 
Bald Eagle — with wings spread, California 
Condor, Whooping Crane, ..$ 14 00 to 18 00 
California Condor — with wings spread... 20 00 
Foreign Birds. 
Kinglet, Humming Bird— wings closed, $ 1 00 
Finch, Nightingale, Canary Bird, 1 25 
Missel Thrush, Skylark, ..... 1 50 
Jay, Quail, Grass Parrakeet, 1 75 
Rook, Hoopoe, Little Tern, 2 00 
Partridge, Redshanks, Little Grebe^ 2 25 
Rifle Bird, Goat Sucker, Lesser Kestrel, 2 75 
Barn Owl, Small Fruit Pigeon, Curlew, .. 3 00 
Pheasant," Jerfalcon, Little Bustard, Cor- 
morant, 4 25 
Large Fruit Pigeon, Guinea Fowl, Shel- 
drake, 5 00 
Lyre Bird, Macaw, Bean Goose, 6 00 
Apteryx, Snowy Owl, Ibis, — -- 8 00 
Rhinoceros Hornbill, Great Bustard, Pen- 
guin, 10 00 
Imperial Eagle, Stork, Black Swan, 12 00 
Jabiru, Whistling Swan, Adjutant, 15 00 
Imperial Eagle— with wings spread, Con- 
dor, Albatross, 16 00 to 18 00 
Condor, Albatross— wings spread, $ 20 to 25 00 
Emeu, Cassowary, South American Ostrich, 
$28 00 to 35 00 
African Ostrich, $35 00 to 50 00 
For further information, estimates, ete., apply 
to HENRY" A. WARD. 
