PREPARING AND SHIPPING ANIMALS. 
formerly rendered a collection of preserved animal forms so 
offensive in a private house. 
Looking back, then, for about 200 years, we come to the 
age when the germ of the art of taxidermy was practised by 
Reaumur. In the cabinet of this learned Frenchman the first 
traces of taxidermy seem to have been found as now prac- 
tised, although it was in truth of a most imperfect kind. The 
ideas of Reaumur were caught up and described by Manduyt. 
The letters of Kuckau on the method of embalming birds 
succeeded. Several zealous disciples followed, and in 1797 the 
Abbe Manesse published a method of collecting and arranging 
animals, and preserving their skins. The poisons and aromatic 
products were the materials he employed at first, but he after- 
wards abandoned these for the acids and alkalis. Daudin, in 
his “ Ornithology,” quotes all these processes, and adds to 
them those of Dufresne. About 1801, Nicolas published his 
method of preserving animals of all kinds, for which he made 
use of a paste or pomade consisting of camphor, potash, alum, 
oil of petral, and a kind of liquor which had the property of 
tanning the skin. But these preservatives, and many others, 
have been superseded by the composition of Becoeur, # which is 
the only one employed in the present day, especially for large 
animals. 
The art of preparing and stuffing any animal is one of great 
simplicity, but requiring clever manipulation, good taste, and 
habits of observation so as to note the attitude assumed 
by the different animals. Every one can, with a very little 
preparation, be made to perform the process ; but this is not 
sufficient; as in painting and other fine arts, so there is an 
immense gulf between the mere mechanical process by which 
a bird or animal is set up and mounted, and another in which 
the exact form and attitude is imitated, and the divers 
colours which ornament it are preserved. In order to imitate 
its attitude, the manners and habits of the species must be 
* The arsenical soap prepared by Becoeur was as follows : — Five ounces 
of camphor, two pounds of arsenic (in powder), two pounds of white soap, 
four ounces of white chalk (in powder), and two ounces of salt of tartar. 
Mix the ingredients by melting the soap, previously cut into thin slices, 
in a pipkin, with water, and over a gentle fire. When melted, add the salt 
of tartar and chalk, and withdraw the pipkin from the fire ; now add the 
arsenic, stirring it in by degrees with a wooden spatula ; then, having 
reduced the camphor to a powder in a mortar, add it to the mixture, and 
stir till thoroughly incorporated, adding spirits of wine, till it is of the 
consistence of a thick paste ; pour it into jars, and cover, when cool, with 
a bladder, and put it away for use, marking it “ Poison.” 
