TAXIDERMY AS A DECORATIVE ART. 
61 
considered a mechanical trade, has in it the elements of a true 
art ; that what has been considered as mechanical skill is now 
being demonstrated as artistic skill. A delicate sense of the 
latter must enter into every production, or a stiff and awkward 
result is certain. The true students of nature now yield the 
point that taxidermy is a true art, and is honestly entitled to such 
a distinction. 
This change is gratifying in the extreme, for the beneficial 
results accruing from it are already manifold. That we have 
witnessed such a change no liberal mind can deny. This being 
the case, a new field has been opened to taxidermists. It has 
made it possible for them to move on, encouraged in new 
channels, and devote their skill and taste to things of a higher 
order of excellence. 
When the public demands a standard of work, and that stand- 
ard is high and unrelenting in its exactions, then the workman — 
mechanical or professional — comes under a pressure that forces 
him to improve, or he must inevitably go under ; and in order 
for him to rise and succeed, he must cater to the demands made 
upon him. If it is tainted with a narrow and uncompromising 
spirit, the only course left for him to pursue is to launch out as 
clear of the obnoxious idea as possible, and prove by his efforts 
and productions that true merit has been unrecognized and unre- 
warded. 
I fear that we taxidermists, as a profession, suffer the ignominy 
of the greater portion of those who could be warm friends and 
supporters of a class of men who have furnished the savants and 
scientists of the entire world v/ith vast collections of the zoological 
kingdom for study and classification. Natural history — espe- 
cially zoology — would be to-day but a very incomplete and hete- 
rogenous mass of facts if it were not for the valuable aid ren- 
dered by both amateur and professional taxidermists. 
The self-sacrifice of the scientists of the world has been shared 
by those who have followed taxidermy as a profession. Taxi- 
dermists, as a rule, are but poorly remunerated. 
The profession has never attracted many men to its ranks as a 
paying investment. Its devotees have generally been drawn to 
it out of a pure sense of the love of nature. I regret to say 
