come out even on my expenditures for labour and materials but for my own time and for profit there was nothing. However, I had the experience and the method and I felt that it was a pretty good four years' work.
In the old days at Ward's a taxidermist was a man who took an animal's skin from a hunter or collector and stuffed it or upholstered it. By the time I had finished the deer groups I had become pretty well convinced that a real taxidermist needed to know the technique of several quite different things.
First, he must be a field man who can collect his own specimens, for other people's measurements are never very satisfactory, and actual study of the animals in their own environment is necessary in making natural groups.
Second, he must know both animal anatomy and clay modelling in order to make his models.
Third, he should have something of the artistic sense to make his groups pleasing as well as accurate.
Fourth, he must know the technique of manikin making, the tanning of skins, and the making of accessories such as artificial leaves, branches, etc.
With all these different kinds of technique in taxidermy it is obvious that if a man attempts to do practically everything himself, as I did in the deer groups, taxidermy must be a very slow process—just as if a painter had to learn to make his own paint or a sculptor to cast his own bronzes or chisel his concepts out of granite or marble.
The proper care of the skins in the field is itself a
