The rapidity with which the art of taxidermy has won its way to public favor in the United States during the last two decades is certainly very gratifying. Less than twenty years ago a great naturalist declared that a skin stuffed is a skin spoiled. Even ten years ago the only specimens permitted in museums were those that were mounted singly, in stereotyped attitudes, on polished pedestals of hard wood.
Between the years 1860 and 1876 a few of the more ambitious taxidermists of Europe produced various groups of mammals, large and small. Of these, one of the most noteworthy was the "Lion and Tiger Struggle," by Edwin Ward, of London, and another was Jules Verreaux's "Arab Courier attacked by Lions." The most of these groups represented animals in theatrical attitudes, usually fighting. While they were of much interest for certain purposes, they were of but little value to persons desiring to study typical forms of the species which were represented. It would have been quite as appropriate to place the "Dying Gladiator" or "The Laocoon" in an ethnological museum, as it would have been to place such groups as the "Lion and Tiger Struggle" of Edwin Ward, or Rowland Ward's "Combat of Red Deer," in a collection of mounted mammals in a scientific museum. Up to the year 1879 no large groups of mammals had been prepared in this country which were considered appropriate for scientific display collections. Furthermore, the production of groups of mammals or birds suitable for scientific museums was generally considered an impossibility.
In 1879 the writer returned from a collecting trip to the East Indies, having in mind numerous designs for groups of mammals, both large and small. It was believed then that many of these would not only be suitable for scientific museums, but would also be far more attractive and instructive than ordinary specimens. A design for a group of orang utans was prepared and submitted to Professor Henry A. Ward, with whom the writer was then associated, at his Natural History Establishment, with a proposition to prepare such a group as was there represented. After considerable hesitation Professor Ward finally decided to let the experiment be tried, and the group was prepared according to the design.
I do not deny the soft impeachment that in one respect this design was highly suggestive of the methods adopted by my European rivals to secure attention to their work, or, in other words, it was a trifle sensational. The group in question represented a pair of immense and hideously ugly male orang utans fighting furiously while they hung suspended in the tree-tops. The father of an interesting family was evidently being assailed by a rival for the affection of the female orang utan, who, with a small infant clinging to her breast, had hastily quitted her nest of green branches, and was seeking taller timber. The nest which she had just quitted was an accurate representation of the nest constructed by this great ape.
In the middle of the group, and at the highest point, was another nest in the top of a sapling, on the edge of which another interesting young orang utan—a production evidently of the previous year, was gazing down with wide-eyed wonder at the fracas going on below. The accessories to this were so designed and arranged as to represent an actual section of the top of a Bornean forest, at a height of about thirty feet from the ground, representing the natural trees, with leaves, orchids, pepper-vines, moss, and vegetation galore. For such a subject an unusual amount of care was bestowed on the accessories. Although the design of this group included the theatrical feature of a combat between animals, there was method in this madness. This feature was introduced for the specific purpose of attracting attention to the group and inviting discussion.
PLATE XVII.
Reproduced from "Two Years in the Jungle."
[a]A Fight in the Tree-tops.]
[a](Part of the Group in the National Museum, Mounted by the Author.)]
The remainder of the group was of such a character that it seemed no scientific observer could find fault with its naturalness. All the various members of the group were represented in natural attitudes (the result of elaborate life-studies in the Bornean jungles), and each one told its own story of the orang utan's life and habits (Plate XVII.)
It is not too much to say that the group caught the popular fancy. It was completed in September, 1879, just in time to be sent to Saratoga, for exhibition before the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, ostensibly for the purpose of illustrating a paper by the author on "The Species of Bornean Orangs." Naturally it attracted considerable attention, and it seemed to meet the approval of the members of the Association, particularly the museum directors and superintendents, who were especially interested in such work.