“I look in vain,” observed I, “for the skin of an animal which might well deserve the closest study of a naturalist,—the winged horse, Pegasus.”
“He is not yet dead,” replied the virtuoso; “but he is so hard ridden by many young gentlemen of the day that I hope soon to add his skin and skeleton to my collection.”
We now passed to the next alcove of the hall, in which was a multitude of stuffed birds. They were very prettily arranged, some upon the branches of trees, others brooding upon nests, and others suspended by wires so artificially that they seemed in the very act of flight. Among them was a white dove, with a withered branch of olive-leaves in her mouth.
“Can this be the very dove,” inquired I, “that brought the message of peace and hope to the tempest-beaten passengers of the ark?”
“Even so,” said my companion.
“And this raven, I suppose,” continued I, “is the same that fed Elijah in the wilderness.”
“The raven? No,” said the virtuoso; “it is a bird of modern date. He belonged to one Barnaby Rudge, and many people fancied that the Devil himself was disguised under his sable plumage. But poor Grip has drawn his last cork, and has been forced to ‘say die’ at last. This other raven, hardly less curious, is that in which the soul of King George I. revisited his lady-love, the Duchess of Kendall.”
My guide next pointed out Minerva’s owl and the vulture that preyed upon the liver of Prometheus. There was likewise the sacred ibis of Egypt, and one of the Stymphalides which Hercules shot in his sixth labor. Shelley’s skylark, Bryant’s water-fowl, and a pigeon from the belfry of the Old South Church, preserved by N. P. Willis, were placed on the same perch. I could not but shudder on beholding Coleridge’s albatross, transfixed with the Ancient Mariner’s crossbow shaft. Beside this bird of awful poesy stood a gray goose of very ordinary aspect.
“Stuffed goose is no such rarity,” observed I. “Why do you preserve such a specimen in your museum?”
“It is one of the flock whose cackling saved the Roman Capitol,” answered the virtuoso. “Many geese have cackled and hissed both before and since; but none, like those, have clamored themselves into immortality.”