vide Hutton, the Birmingham historian, who visited it in 1784, and relates how he would fain have spent hours looking at things for which only minutes were allowed. From this period up to 1816 (at which date the valuable ornithological collection of Col. Montagu was purchased for the nation at a cost of £11,000) the additions to the natural history galleries were not many, probably owing to the troublous times; however, when we had succeeded in breaking the power of Napoleon and restored peace to Europe, naturalists and taxidermists found that the public had then time and inclination to devote themselves to their collections or works.

Accordingly, during the next twenty years many works (including those before noted) were written on taxidermy, the most notable being by Swainson, Brown, and that eccentric genius Waterton, whom we may call the pioneer of our present system of mounting, and who, in his usual caustic style, pointed out the very inferior way in which specimens were then mounted.

At the end of his "Wanderings in South America" appeared a treatise on Taxidermy, but, as he decried the use of arsenical preparations, and mounted his birds without wires in a fashion peculiar to himself, his system did not find favour in the eyes of the school of rigid stuffing, who had not then worked out the present happy compromise between his style and theirs. His patience must have been inexhaustible; indeed, the Rev. J. G. Wood, who knew him well, has told me of many instances in which he spent days in scraping out the hands and feet of the larger apes until he got them as thin as paper, and also of his delight when he invented the kid-glove substitute for a peacock's face much to the astonishment of the reverend gentleman. Of course; all these works on the preservation of natural history objects and the labours of collectors directed the public mind to the contemplation of natural history.

The British Museum at this time also — relieved of a few of the restrictions on admission — became more popular, and in 1836 we find the natural history collections were as follow: Mammals, species 405; birds, species 2400; constituting altogether in specimens the sum total of 4659. Of reptiles we could boast — species 600, specimens 1300; fish 1000 specimens. These figures did not contrast favourably with the Paris Museum as in the days of old for now Paris stood: Mammals, species 500; birds, species 2300; grand total of specimens 6000. Of fish the French had four times as many as we (and beat us, proportionately, in other sections), while we were far in advance in this class of the Vienna and Berlin Museums. In shells (not fossils), London and Paris were equal and much superior to Berlin and Leyden. In 1848 an extraordinary increase (marking the great interest taken in taxidermical science) had taken place; we now had added to the British Museum since 1836, 29,595 specimens, comprising 5797 mammals, 13,414 birds, 4112 reptiles, 6272 fish.

In mammals and birds we held the proud position of having the finest and most extensive collection in the world, while in reptiles and fish we were again beaten by Paris. In proof of the growing interest taken in natural history, we find that in 1860 the number of visitors to the natural history department was greatly in excess of all the other departments; and at the present time the attendance has greatly increased, as also the objects exhibited, a fact patent to all who will take the trouble to visit the British Museum, or to inspect the official catalogues published from time to time, a synopsis of which cannot at present be given owing to their extent and variety; but we can assume, I think, that we have as complete a natural history collection as is to be found in any of the museums of the world. [Footnote: Some idea of the extent of the National Natural History Collections may be gathered from the pages of the recently-published British Museum "Catalogues" 1874-82, where, in many instances, the number of specimens of a certain order of birds contained in the Museum falls very little short of the ascertained number of species for the whole of the world.]

Though taxidermy flourished, as we see, for some years previous to the Great Exhibition of 1851, yet that decidedly gave a considerable impetus to the more correct and artistic delineation of animals, especially in what may be called the grotesque school instituted by the Germans, which, though it may perhaps be decried on the score of misrepresenting nature in the most natural way possible, yet teaches a special lesson by the increased care necessary to more perfectly render the fine points required in giving animals that serio-comic and half-human expression which was so intensely ridiculous and yet admirable in the studies of the groups illustrating the fable of "Reinecke the Fox," which were in the Wurtemburgh Court, class XXX., and were executed by H. Ploucquet, of Stuttgart. These groups, or similar ones, are now to be seen in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham.

In nearly all of these groups the modelling and the varied expressions of hope, fear, love, and rage, were an immense step in advance of the old wooden school of taxidermy; specimens of which are still to be found in museums — stiff, gaunt, erect, and angular. Copies of those early outrages on nature may still be seen in the dreary plates of the anything but "animated" work of "poor Goldie," who, as Boswell said, "loved to shine" in what was least understood.

16 PRACTICAL TAXIDERMY.

From this era the English artists, having had their eyes opened by the teachings of the foreign exhibits of 1851, steadily gained ground, and the Wards having the sense to employ, in the first instance, foreign artistic workmen, rapidly pushed to the front, until the finest animal study of ancient or modern times was achieved by one of them — the "Lion and Tiger Struggle," exhibited at Paris, and afterwards at the Sydenham Crystal Palace. This, and one or two analogous works, carried the English to the foremost ranks of zoological artists; and now that we embellish our taxidermic studies with natural grasses, ferns, etc.., and with representations of scenery and rockwork, in the endeavour to carry the eye and mind to the actual localities in which the various species of animals are found — an advance in art not dreamed of fifty years ago — and also correctly model the heads and limbs of animals, we still hold our own, and are as far advanced in taxidermy as any other nation.

CHAPTER II.
DECOYING AND TRAPPING ANIMALS.

THE decoying and trapping of birds, etc.., is a somewhat delicate subject to handle, lest we degenerate into giving instruction in amateur poaching; but the application of my direction I must leave to the reader's own sense of fitness of time and scene, and object to be snared. And now, before launching into my subject, one word in season. Observe as a golden rule — never to be broken — this: Do not snare, shoot, nor kill any more birds or animals than you absolutely want — in fine, do not kill for killing's sake, or snare in wantonness. Let all you do have reference to some object to be attained, either to procure specimens wanted for a collection, or, in cases of necessity, for food. Bear this in mind, for, without sympathy with creatures fashioned in as complex and beautiful a manner as ourselves, we can never hope to be true naturalists, or to feel a thrill of exquisite pleasure run through us when a new specimen falls to our prowess. How can we admire its beauty when alive, or feel a mournful satisfaction at its death, if we are constantly killing the same species of bird for sport alone?

Another thing: kill a wounded bird as quickly and humanely as possible, which you may always do by pressing its breast just under the wings with your finger and thumb, bearing the whole weight of the palm of the hand on the sternum or breast-bone, and gradually increasing the pressure until life is extinct. This plan suffices for even the larger birds, provided you