been said before on the This review comprehends Like the Abbé Manesse,

In 1802 their wishes were nearly accomplished, for there appeared almost at the same time two works on Taxidermy, the one by M. Nicholas a chemist, the other by M. Henon. M. Nicholas makes an analysis of all that had preparation of animals. nearly half the volume. he renounces poisons as dangerous to the preparers, and insufficient to avert the destructive effects of insects on zoological collections. He pretends that with his soapy pomatum and tanning liquor, stuffed animals are preserved a long time. The drugs which compose his preparations do not injure those who use them. We allow that this is not the case with the metallic soap, and supposing M. Nicholas's preservative equally efficacious, we should certainly give it the preference, but we have tried it without success. We are therefore obliged to retain the arsenical soap: M. Dufresne has employed it for forty years, and has never been inconvenienced by it. We may also instance Le Vaillant, Maugé, Desmoulins, and especially Bécœur, for no one in France has mounted as many birds as the latter.*

He is a nephew of Bécœur's of Metz, who invented the metallic soap. Bécœur of Metz was the best apothecary in that city. He mounted fresh birds in the greatest perfection, and by a little practice one is sure to succeed with his method.

It remains for us to speak of a little work published by Henon and Mouton Fontenelle: they had at first no other object than to read their manuscript to the Athenæum at Lyons; of which they were members: they were earnestly solicited to print it, and published it in 1802. These authors speak of birds only: they describe an in

He opened his bird in the usual manner, that is to say, by the middle of the belly; he easily took out the body by this opening without cutting any of the extremities; he then removed the flesh by the aid of a scalpel, taking the precaution to preserve all the ligaments; he anointed the skin, and put the skeleton in its place, carefully dispersing the feathers on each side. He run the head through with an iron wire, in which he had formed a little ring at nearly the third of its length; the smallest side passed into the rump, in such a manner that the ring of the iron wire was under the sternum; he then passed a wire into each claw, so that the extremities of the wire united to pass into the little ring; he bent these extremities within, and fixed them with a string to the iron in the middle of the vertebral column. He replaced the flesh by flax or chopped cotton, sewed up the bird, placed it on a foot or support of wood, and gave it a suitable attitude, of which he was always sure, for a bird thus mounted could only bend in its natural posture. He prepared quadrupeds in the same manner. If this man, so favourably known (since he created the art of Taxidermy) had not invented the arsenical soap, we should not now have the pleasure of seeing in our cabinets many birds mounted by him sixty years ago and still in very beautiful preservation.

finity of methods practised by others, and compare them to their own, which without doubt are preferable, but too slow to satisfy the impatience of ornithologists.

The oil of turpentine is almost the only preservative which they employ. They use it in two ways. First, by soaking, with the aid of a brush, the roots of the feathers in all parts of the bird after it is mounted: the second method, which is not so good as the first, consists in varnishing the whole surface of the bird, which secures its preservation. It must be allowed, however, that the spirits of turpentine absorb and tarnish the colours. If the first method be executed with all the care it requires, that is to say, if the spirit have only wetted the quills and down of the feathers, these parts will be preserved; but their extremities will be attacked and destroyed by insects. This proceeding appears to us to be difficult to put in practice for the smaller birds, because the oil, which has the quality of spreading with much rapidity, quickly reaches all parts of their feathers, and thus only preserves them at the expense of their colours, so rich in the greater part of the small birds which come from Africa and South America.

It is necessary to use the oil of turpentine for the exterior of large quadrupeds and fish; first,

secondly, because prudence does not allow us to employ it on the surface of any animal, not even on the parts free from hair.*

We have thought it indispensable to enter into some details on the methods hitherto proposed and admitted, in order to point out the progress of Taxidermy. We now pass to the description of our own methods, and will commence by giving a list of the tools and other objects with which it is necessary to provide ourselves. We shall add to it the receipt for the preservatives which we employ, and, adopting M. Cuvier's divisions for the sake of order, we will treat, with detail, on the means of preparation and preservation peculiar to certain animals: for it is proper to remark that the rat, the deer, and the elephant, require very different methods for their preparation.

*M. Dufresne means the exterior surface only, which is so much handled in the stuffing as to make it too dangerous to anoint it with his soap; and I observe, that the artists in the Zoological Laboratory at Paris carefully bend or turn down the points of the various wires, after they have inserted them, (as they easily straighten them again with the fingers, if requisite,) lest, by pricking their fingers, the arsenic might do them serious injury. M. Valenciennes, however, assures me that it is indispensably necessary for the traveller to anoint the naked parts of the legs of birds killed in hot climates.

Articles necessary for mounting Quadrupeds, Birds, Reptiles, Fish, &c.

1. An assortment of iron wire of all sizes.

2. Flax or tow, or, for want of it, the commonest cotton, or the ends of untwisted cords. We must never use marine plants without having well steeped them in fresh water. Without this precaution, the marine salt with which they are impregnated, and which retains so much humidity, would rot the skins that are stuffed with them.

3. A box containing scalpels, scissars with pointed blades, and two or three pointed forceps of different sizes, one of which ought to have indented extremities.

4. Two flat pincers, large and small.

5. A round pincer.

6. A cutting pincer (for the wire). 7. A hammer.

8. Two files.

9. Brushes of different sizes, for putting the drugs on the birds, smoothing the feathers, &c.

10. A collection of eyes in enamel. We find