Experience your wise counselor,
Caution your elder brother,
And hope your guardian genius.”
Addison.
Taxidermist's Manual.
By T. J. McCONNAUGHAY.
Taxidermy.
The word taxidermy is derived from the two Greek words, taxis, which means arrangement, and derma which means skin. Hence this term is applied to the art of preserving and mounting the skins of animals for ornamental and scientific purposes. Little is known of the origin of this art, but it would seem from books of travel and natural history, that it is at most, not more than three hundred years old. It began to be practiced in England about the beginning of the 18th century, which fact is proven from the “Sloane Collection” which was formed in 1825, as the nucleus of the present natural history collection lodged in the galleries of South Kensington. It was about the middle of the 18th century that the first book devoted to the principles of taxidermy was published in France. After this, others appeared from time to time in France and Germany, but England contributed no literature on the subject until about the beginning of the present century. In 1828 an Englishman named Scudder, established a museum of mounted specimens in an old alms house in New York City. Previous to this, the art seems to have been absolutely unknown in America. It was not till the exhibition of 1851, that the French and German taxidermists taught the English the principles of scientific treatment.