Abstract
THAT taxidermy has been almost an entirely neglected art is obvious to the least scientific visitor to even the best of our museums, when he regards the “deformed, distorted, and disproportioned” effigies that represent our commonest species. Every means, therefore, be it by example or precept, which will have the effect of impressing on the taxidermist the importance of his share in the exposition of natural history, and which will tend to raise what is at present little better than the knack of distending, more or less cleverly, the skins of animals with wool or shavings, to the science and art of where and why to “stuff” and reproduce, and how to pose, will be welcomed by all those who are responsible for instructing, by forms made up to simulate life, those desirous of becoming acquainted with the likeness and gait of animals which they have few or no opportunities of observing in a state of nature; and by those who turn aside to our museums to refresh their spirits with the sight of species which they have learned to love in the fields or in the sea.
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Taxidermy and Modelling1. Nature 54, 319–321 (1896). https://doi.org/10.1038/054319c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/054319c0