DOI Heft:
No. 11 (February, 1894)
DOI Artikel:Miller, Fred: Taxidermy as an art
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.17189#0173
Taxidermy as an Art
Some of the wax modelling is most excellent—so the bird or animal in its wild state. Some years
good as to deceive even at the first glance; but ago, when staying in a country village, I lodged in
the linen counterfeits are
not very successful, and at
their best this part of the
group is the most difficult
to manage with any success.
Rocks, again, have to be
modelled in brown paper,
stiffened with glue, as the
weight of real specimens
prevents their use; and to
give these brown-paper
rocks anything approach-
ing reality is a work of
unusual difficulty, as those
who have tried will testify.
The technical difficul-
ties in representing the
natural environment of '
the object are great, and
little wonder it is that,
when left to the ordi-
nary workman, a small
amount of actuality is black-headed gulls, south Kensington museum
given to the specimens.
But the dressing of the case, important as it is, the house of a man who, among his other callings,
is of less moment than setting up the specimens was stuffer of the locality. His occupation of rat
in characteristic attitudes, illustrative of their or vermin destroyer took him much in the more
habits. To do this as well as it should be done secluded parts of the country, and I found that a
can only be accomplished by those who know walk with him was far better than reading a work
on natural history, for he knew
intimately all the birds in the
neighbourhood, their nesting
places, song, food and habits.
In setting up a bird he was
familiar with, this knowledge
saved him from making those
absurd blunders that taxiderm-
ists too often fall into through
ignorance, and moreover en-
abled him to fix up a specimen
with some character; but when it
came to the dressing of the case
his want of appliances and re-
sources crippled him very much,
and (for so true an artist was
this country naturalist, that he
even took up oil painting, think-
ing it might help him in his
stuffing) he was quite grieved by
his inability to bring his surround-
/) '^f ings more in accord with nature.
,ays and their young, south Kensington museum The Prices he obtained did not
161
Some of the wax modelling is most excellent—so the bird or animal in its wild state. Some years
good as to deceive even at the first glance; but ago, when staying in a country village, I lodged in
the linen counterfeits are
not very successful, and at
their best this part of the
group is the most difficult
to manage with any success.
Rocks, again, have to be
modelled in brown paper,
stiffened with glue, as the
weight of real specimens
prevents their use; and to
give these brown-paper
rocks anything approach-
ing reality is a work of
unusual difficulty, as those
who have tried will testify.
The technical difficul-
ties in representing the
natural environment of '
the object are great, and
little wonder it is that,
when left to the ordi-
nary workman, a small
amount of actuality is black-headed gulls, south Kensington museum
given to the specimens.
But the dressing of the case, important as it is, the house of a man who, among his other callings,
is of less moment than setting up the specimens was stuffer of the locality. His occupation of rat
in characteristic attitudes, illustrative of their or vermin destroyer took him much in the more
habits. To do this as well as it should be done secluded parts of the country, and I found that a
can only be accomplished by those who know walk with him was far better than reading a work
on natural history, for he knew
intimately all the birds in the
neighbourhood, their nesting
places, song, food and habits.
In setting up a bird he was
familiar with, this knowledge
saved him from making those
absurd blunders that taxiderm-
ists too often fall into through
ignorance, and moreover en-
abled him to fix up a specimen
with some character; but when it
came to the dressing of the case
his want of appliances and re-
sources crippled him very much,
and (for so true an artist was
this country naturalist, that he
even took up oil painting, think-
ing it might help him in his
stuffing) he was quite grieved by
his inability to bring his surround-
/) '^f ings more in accord with nature.
,ays and their young, south Kensington museum The Prices he obtained did not
161