href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@26014@[email protected]#Toc178253730" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">*

Fig. 45 — The "Hill sliding net" ready for use. *

Fig. 46 — "Sugaring" net. *

Fig. 47 — Section of "Setting Board" *

Fig. 48 — Butterfly "braced" on board. *

Fig. 49 — Section of division strips. *

Fig. 50 — Front of setting-board box, with flaps open. *

Fig. 51 — Sugaring can. *

Fig. 52 — Impaler. *

Fig. 53 — Diaphragm bottle. *

Fig. 54 — Sugaring drum. *

Fig. 55 — Assembling cage. *

Fig. 56 — Cage for collecting larvae. *

Fig. 57 — Insect breeding cage *

CHAPTER XVI. ON NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMS, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO A NEW SYSTEM OF PICTORIAL ARRANGEMENT OF VERTEBRATES. *

Plate V. Arrangements of vertebrates in Zoological Room. *

Scanner's remarks. *

PRACTICAL TAXIDERMY

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

THE First Edition of "Practical Taxidermy" having now run through the press — with, I venture to hope, some profit to students of the art, if I may judge from the many hundreds of letters I have from time to time received — the publishers have invited me to revise such parts of the work as may be expedient, and also to add many technical methods of modelling animals an artistic manner.

I do this the more readily because of the narrow way in which most professional Taxidermists bolster up their art in a secret and entirely unnecessary manner — unnecessary because amateur can, but by the severest application, possibly compete with the experience of the technical or professional worker. No pictorial artist ever pretends he has a special brush or colours with which he can paint landscapes or sea pieces at will; he knows that only thorough mastery of the technicalities of his art - supplemented by wide experience and close application - enables him to succeed as he does, and to delight people who, seeing his facility of handling, may imagine that picture painting is very easy and could be readily acquired — perhaps from books. So it is with the Taxidermist. Those, therefore, who procure this book, thinking to do all attempted to be explained therein without long study and without a knowledge of anatomy, form, arrangement, and colour, may put it on one side as useless. These pages are merely an introduction to a delightful art, which must be wooed with patient determination and loving pains until technical skill invests it with beauty.

If I can be of any assistance to my readers, I invite them to write to me if at any time they are puzzled or temporarily disheartened; merely asking them to remember

(1) — That, not being in business, I cannot of course answer purely business communications; and (2) — Not being a man of infinite leisure, it must also be remembered that a properly directed envelope for return to the inquirer is of consequence when minutes are precious. Unlike the Prime Minister, I do not like post-cards, and never answer them if from unknown correspondents.

I may here mention that this edition is not only considerably enlarged, but has several woodcuts and four plates added, three of which latter have been engraved from photographs specially taken for this work.

I say now, in conclusion, work hard, study hard, and look to good modellers and painters — and not to bird-stuffers — for conceptions of form, arrangement, and colour, and in the end, believe me, you will achieve a better success than attends the labours of those who follow in the old paths of careless or inartistic Taxidermy.

MONTAGU BROWNE.

LEICESTER.

PRACTICAL TAXIDERMY.

CHAPTER I.
THE RISE AND PROGRESS of TAXIDERMY.

TAXIDERMY, which is derived from two Greek words, a literal translation of which would signify the "arrangement of skins," appears to have been practised in a limited degree ages ago, for may we not say without doubt that the first taxidermists were the ancient Egyptians, who, despite the fact that they seldom or never appear to have removed the skin as a whole, as in our modern methods, yet, taking into consideration the excellent manner in which they preserved their human or other bodies for thousands of years by the aid of injections, spices, essential oils, or what not, they may, I think, be fairly placed in the front rank as the first taxidermists the world has known. For an account, of the arts used in embalming see Herodotus, who says:

In Egypt certain persons are appointed by law to exercise this art (embalming) as their peculiar business; and when a dead body is brought them they produce patterns of mummies in wood imitated in painting, the most elaborate of which are