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OR,

THE ART

OF

COLLECTING, PREPARING,

AND

ARY

LONDON:

Printed by A. & R. Spottiswoode,
New-Street-Square.

TAXIDERMY.

THE

HE art of Taxidermy has only made progress during the last sixty years. At the beginning of this period, the celebrated Reaumur published a memoir on the method of preserving skins of birds to be sent into distant countries. He formed a very beautiful cabinet of Natural History in his own house, which, after his death, became the basis of the collection of birds in the Museum of Paris. Experience soon proved that the means he proposed were insufficient for preservation, and availed still less for preparation. Reaumur received birds from all parts, in spirits of wine, according to the instructions he had given; he contented himself by taking them from this liquor, and introducing two ends of an iron wire into the body behind the thighs; he then fastened the wire to the claws, the ends, which passed below, serving to fix them to a small board; he put two black glass beads in the place of eyes, and called it a stuffed bird.

The larger animals, such as the Saw-Shark, the Squalus Carcharias, the Crocodile, were padded with straw, whence comes the term stuffed