2 
WARD’S NATURAL SCIENCE BULLETIN. 
WYN DEMID’S 
aturd Smite* 
PUBLISHED QUARTERLY 
AT 
WARD’S NATURAL SCIENCE ESTABLISHIVIENT. 
ROCHESTER, N. Y. 
REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS : 
BAKER, A. B.— Invertebrate Zoology, Oblog-y. 
HORNADAY, WM. T. — Zoology, Taxidermy and Col- 
lecting-. 
HOWELL, EDWIN E. — Geology, Mineralogy and 
Palaeontology. 
LUCAS, FREDERIC A.— Vert. Zoology, Osteology. 
PRESTON, H. L.— Mineralogy and Conchology. 
STAEBNER, F. W.— Mineralogy and Petrography. 
STEARNS, W. A. — Entomology. 
WARD, HENRY A.— Miscellaneous. 
WEBSTER, FREDERIC S. ^Ornithology. 
EDITORIAL NOTES. 
The pledge which we made in our last 
Bulletin — belated by two weeks in its 
appearance — that “we will be more prompt 
next time,” has been far enough from be- 
ing kept. But now, even as then, we have 
to throw the blame upon other shoulders, 
and say that if the museums, and colleges, 
and professors, and naturalists, and ama- 
teurs had not so beset the establishment 
with their orders for collections and speci- 
mens, and if Professor Ward had not so 
followed us up with work, of hand and 
head, in preparing these, we should have 
felt much more like giving our evenings 
to our naturalist friends and subscribers. 
And with this it has dawned upon us 
that, having promised but four numbers 
to each yearly volume of The Bulletin, 
it would be but right to let number four 
close 1884, and to commence the New 
Year (1883) with this No. 1 of Vol. 2. 
We are now cpiite ready to say to our 
friends that if they will excuse the delays 
of the past, our future efforts to. entertain 
or interest them in these pages will be 
both earnest and prompt. We are given 
by the establishment full and free oppor- 
tunity to discourse on the subjects of our 
museum work, and for illustrating our 
words by as many and as large wood cuts 
as we choose to order, and without expense 
to ourselves. We purpose improving the 
opportunity thus given us, and to make 
The Bulletin more and more a Journal 
which shall be read by all. The subscrip- 
tion will still remain the sam e— fifty cents 
per year. We bespeak friendly action on 
the part of our subscribers in sending in 
very promptly their names and the sub- 
scription sum for 1883. If they will do 
this universally and promptly, this Jour- 
nal will, by means of which we are aware, 
be made of really great interest to them. 
We await your replies to the red slips 
enclosed in this number, and hope to enter 
for this year every old subscriber and at 
least one thousand new ones. The pres- 
ent number is issued more liberally than 
any of the previous ones, being an edition 
of Ten Thousand Copies. Our subse- 
quent numbers will be more closely limited 
to those who have regularly subscribed. 
N. B. — Do not postpone, and do not 
trouble yourself to seek a draft or a money 
order. Send us simply some Postage 
Stamps of any denomination to the sum 
of 50 cents. 
THE CENTURY ARTICLE. 
The December number of the Century has a 
generally interesting and well-illustrated article 
on “The Taxidermal Art.” Many methods are 
spoken of, some correctly and some absurdly, 
and a number of persons skillful in the art or 
well-known in counection with its cultivation 
are personally mentioned. As might be expected, 
Ward’s Natural Science Establishment comes in 
for prominent notice. Of what is true in rela- 
tion to it we are pleased and proud, as also that 
we should as professionals be so abundantly 
praised by having our work chiefly copied as 
illustrations of the higher attainments in the art. 
We confess to a little surprise at the way the 
writer enumerates our zoological specimens. — 
“At his Rochester headquarters there are over 
twenty thousand Mammals, Birds, Fishes and 
Reptiles ready for stuffing and mounting. Among 
these are one thousand Kangaroos, one hundred 
Tigers, * * three Elephants, sixty Bears, 
* * two hundred Seals and Sea- Lions, thirty 
Orang Outans, five Chimpanzees, three Gorillas,’’ 
etc., etc. Now we will admit the twenty: thousand 
specimens of vertebrates as being not far from 
what our books show, also the Elephants and the 
several great anthropoid Apes. But for the 
Kangaroos and the Tigers and the Seals and Sea- 
Lions we falter under the load which is given us 
to bear, and we insist on reducing it seventy-five 
per cent, Mr. Hornaday and Mr. W ebster iiave 
each bad their pieces handsomely and numer- 
ously presented in the fine illustrations with 
which the article abounds. They both regret, 
and we all join them in it, that two of these 
illustrations have wrong names beneath them. 
The fine group of “ Woodcock and Young,” 
attributed by a fault of the composer to Mr. 
Hornaday, is really the work of Mr. Thos. W. 
Fraine, a prominant taxidermist of this city, while 
ttie “Harlequin Duck, wrapped,” assigned to 
Mr. Webster, belongs to Prof. W. E. D. Scott, 
of Princeton, N. J. 
« ♦- 
SKINNING BIRDS ALIVE. 
Mr. Soutbwick, of the well-known firm of 
Soutbwick & Jencks, Providence, R. I., writes 
to us as follows of a popular error: 
Within the past few years, I have been fre- 
quently asked: “Is it true that these birds are 
skinned alive, so as to retain in the greatest 
degree the beauty and brilliancy of their color- 
ing?” A statement to that effect has appeared in 
many of our Eastern papers, and would seem to 
be almost too manifestly absurd to need reply. 
Certain ladies find their sympathies wrought 
upon, and decide witli righteous indignation 
that they will in future wear no feathers except 
ostrich plumes. They may be pardoned for their 
hasty judgment, and also that they do not know 
that said ostrich plumes are usually plucked from 
the living bird, to ils probable discomfort. 
But that any one regularly employed on the 
staff of our best papers, should repeat the canard 
or believe that a bird could for a moment survive 
the process, or that any man could take the skin 
from a living specimen, shows an ignorance of 
natural science that is in these days deplorable. 
Very truly yours, 
J, W. SOUTHWICK, 
THE SOCIETY OF TAXIDERMISTS. 
The members and friends of this enterprising 
organization have reason to rejoice in the fact 
that its prospects, for the immediate future at all 
events, are so bright and promising. For some 
months the financial failure of a highly merito- 
rius exhibition in Boston was a cause of general 
depression among those who had labored so 
earnestly and long for the intrinsic success of 
the display, but a recent favorable turn in the 
fortunes of the Society has caused it to “rise 
like a giant refreshed.” Very unexpectedly and 
without any undue solicitation, Mr. Jacob H. 
Studer, of Columbus, Ohio, expressed a wil- 
lingness to take an active part in the work 
of making a success of the third annual exhi- 
bition, already appointed to be held in New 
York City. He generously offered to advance 
$500 as a guarantee fund for the expenses 
of the exhibition, and to raise additional sub- 
scriptions if necessary. Accordingly at a meet- 
ing of the executive committee, Mr. Studer was 
elected president of a Board of Exhibition Com- 
missioners, and the following gentlemen were 
also elected members of the same body: Prof. 
G. Brown Goode, vice-president; Dr. J. B. Hol- 
der, secretary; Andrew Carnegie, treasurer; Dr. 
Wendell Prime, Mr J. C. Beard, Prof. Henry 
A. Ward, Mr. Robert Colgate and Prof. A. S. 
Bickmore. 
At first it was decided to hold the exhibition 
early in December, as usual, but in a short time 
the matter had assumed such proportions 
that the time was found to be far too limited for 
the preparation of such exhibits as the members 
desired to bring together in what is to be the 
most important display the Society will make in 
many years to come xl proposition for the post- 
ponement of the exhibition in order to make it 
larger and finer every way, met with universal 
approval among the intending exhibitors, and it 
was therefore decided to hold it daring the first 
two weeks of April, 1883, opening on the morn- 
ing of Thursday, the 4th. The expenses of the 
exhibition are fully guaranteed, thanks to Mr. 
Studer and one or two other members of the 
Board, and there is every prospect that the 
Society will bring together a display which will 
be in every way worthy of the patronage of the 
metropolis. At present it seems probable that 
Masonic Hall will be the one selected, and its 
ample proportions, elegant appointments and 
commanding situation on 23d street, opposite 
Booth’s theatre, renders it particularly adapted 
to the requirements' for a successful exhibition. 
There is little doubt but that the fourth annual 
exhibition of the Society can be held in Wash- 
ington, D. C., in the new National Museum 
building, and under the patronage of the Museum 
and the Smithsonian Institute, if the Society so 
elects. Professor Baird, director of the United 
States National Museum, has recently officially 
invited the Society to prepare and deposit in the 
museum a collection of tools, materials, models 
and finished specimens, “to show the present 
condition and the possibilities of the art of Taxi- 
dermy,” for which full credit will be given the 
Society and its individual members who take 
part in making up the collection. Tne Society 
has accepted the task, and a few months will see 
it fully accomplished. 
The active membership of the organization 
has been increased to sixty-four, and the influ- 
ence of the Society is beginning to be felt. It 
has a powerful ally in the National Museum, the 
officers of which regard the Society as working, 
in a especial way, to accomplish the same ends 
as every zoological museum. 
It is intended that the display in New Y T ork 
shall be nothing less than an exposition of the 
taxidermist’s art, at which the visitor will see 
not only finely finished pieces, but models, draw- 
ings, casts of animals, bronzes, tools, materials 
and accessories of all kinds. 
P g._We hear as we go to press that Prof. 
Goode, the Director of the National Museum, 
proposes to take to London, for display at the 
Fishery Exposition to be held there in May, such 
piece or pieces as shall prove most meritorious at 
the New York Exhibition. 
