I would not fail in grasping
Though with good it brings me pain.
While I grieve for the beauty earth holds no more
I catch a gleam of the heavenly shore.
[TAXIDERMY.]
MR. WATTERTON’S METHOD OF STUFFING BIRDS.
Observe, before procuring a specimen, how beautifully the feathers of a bird are arranged, one falling over the other in the nicest order; and that, where this charming harmony is interrupted, the defect, though not noticed by an ordinary spectator, will appear immediately to the eye of a naturalist. Thus, a bird not wounded, and in perfect feather, must be procured if possible, for the loss of the feathers can seldom be made good; and where the deficiency is great, all the skill of the artist will avail him little in his attempt to conceal the defect, because, in order to hide it, he must contract the skin, bring down the upper feathers and shove in the lower ones, which would throw all the surrounding parts into contortion.
You will observe, that the whole skin does not produce feathers, and that it is very tender where the feathers do not grow. The bare parts are admirably formed for expansion about the throat and stomach, and they fit into the different cavities of the body at the wings, shoulders, rump, and thighs, with wonderful exactness; so that in stuffing the bird, if you make an even rotund surface of the skin where these cavities existed, in lieu of re-forming them, all symmetry, order, and proportion, are lost forever.