Art Of The Taxidermist

Crash! Bump—bump—bump. Crash!" The thick underbrush of beech saplings swayed masily. From the matted foliage where some heavy object had crushed a path, one sturdy beechling jerked itself erect. A sudden rifle shot; the whine of a bullet; a dull falll; a thrashing of leaves—silence. The big bear is dead. The branches parted, thrust aside by eager hands, and a voice, half-elated, half-regretful, exclaimed: "Well, old timer, your troubles are over but mine have just begun." The voice of the museum man, skillfully setting to work. And in that one sentence he sums up the philosophy of the modern taxidermist; the philosophy which makes him the most careful of all hunters. Not for him the thrill of the sportsman who can kill to the limit of the legal "bag." Whenever a museum man makes a "kill" he is storing up just so much more work for himself because he has to "prepare" his specimen.

Nowadays this is a painstaking and somewhat complicated process, but interesting withal. Let us put aside any preconceived notions we may have of the old-time "bird and animal carpenter," and see what penalty a museum taxidermist pays for pulling his trigger. Behold him there in the midst of a maddening swarm of insects, skinning his animal. When the skin is off, salted, and rolled up at one side, he must tackle the carcass to take accurate measurements that he records carefully in his notebook. Often he must also extract the skeleton of the animal, which he will need in modeling his clay form. And remember that he must go through this process for every animal in the group. Since he is preparing a habitat group, not only the animals but also their environment must be shown.

So out comes his camera, and photographs of the locality are made for reference later on. Plants are collected—some to be used as models for plaster moulds, some to be pressed, dried and colored for use in the exhibit. If the taxidermist is also a painter he seeks a favorable location and paints a field sketch for the background of the group. Follow him back to town. There while the skins are being tanned, he busies himself with making a miniature model of the group. Days, even weeks, are spent on the model. No effort is grudged, no pains are spared, for the finished exhibit will stand or fall by the merit of this working plan. After a dozen experiments the preparator determines upon the most desirable position for each animal. From the measurements taken in the field and the bones that he retrieved, he sets up a form for the clay model. This is the start of a lot of work.

By: davidbunch

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