Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 1 (1897).djvu/442

414 from using corrosive sublimate with the greatest carelessness; and another, a well-known north country birdstuffer, had to give up his work for a long time owing to arsenical poisoning. Never shall I forget one day when, on calling to see him in his workshop, I found him in a cloud of powdered arsenic, dusting it on by the handful. Needless to say with me it was a case of "Erupit, evasit, as Tully would phrase it." I bolted as fast as I could. My remonstrances were of no use until he found his health failing, and then he took to equally good but less suicidal preparations.

There are several excellent works on the art nowadays, both English and American. When I began as a boy to skin and mount specimens there were very few, and they generally contained a great deal that was new and a great deal that was true; but, as some philosopher has observed, unfortunately that which was true was not new, and that which was new was not true. To my thinking, the best of the lot was Captain Browne's 'Manual of Taxidermy.' As I write I have not my books by me for reference, but, if I remember rightly, he inculcated very truly at the head of his list of preservatives,—

Of course, no matter how well a bird is done, it is impossible to make it exactly true to nature. Take a Knot, for instance, as one sees it puffed out in a round ball, standing on the mudflats. Perfection is not to be attained in this vale of tears, but still we can approach closely to it, and there is a very great satisfaction in preserving and mounting one's own specimens, when a very great deal more can be learned about them than could otherwise be done, for one is led almost unconsciously to study their various natural attitudes, &c, and the various little details that go so much to enhance the value and beauty of a specimen. There is nothing done without hard work, but in this, as in everything else, if a man means to succeed, he will. There is nothing like beginning early, for a boy does not take it so much to heart as one of maturer years, when, after having spent hours over elaborating a specimen, bird or animal, and having completed it to his entire satisfaction, a kind friend on being shown it remorselessly picks it to pieces from head to tail, metaphorically