EDITORIAL GLEANINGS.
In the last 'Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution' for the year ending 1895—date of publication 1897—Dr. R.W. Shufeldt, author of 'Scientific Taxidermy for Museums,' draws attention to the "Taxidermical Methods in the Leyden Museum, Holland." This contribution has been induced by the receipt of "a MS., illustrated by a large series of photographs, received from Mr. H.H. ter Meer, jun., on the staff of, and præparator to, the Museum of Natural History of Leyden." The author explains that in Holland taxidermy is discouraged by the fact "that the Dutch biologists filling the more influential positions do not exert themselves either by pen or word to powerfully promote the art among them.... For some years past Mr. H.H. ter Meer has practised what Kerr, his able instructor, had taught him, and with 'extraordinary dexterity' he sews strips of tow side by side upon the sculptured body of the mammal, in such a manner as to exactly imitate the superficial muscles and other parts in the way they occur in nature. Mammals' heads are ' carved out of peat,' and it does not matter out of what substance a mammal is modelled, provided the form is reproduced exactly as it would be were the animal alive, and that it is possible to drive pins in it without bursting or breaking the artificially prepared body, in order to press the skin into the hollows between the muscles. Kerr's methods of imitating the superficial anatomical parts require much patience and time to learn and successfully practise, and this is apt to discourage many young taxidermists at first, as it did Mr. H.H. ter Meer; but its advantages are so great when once accomplished, that no abandoning thereafter is ever entertained by the expert." Mr. ter Meer has also "succeeded in inventing a material, after years of experiment and practice, that possesses the moulding properties of clay, and that dries with great rapidity, and never cracks after once setting." This new material, and what can be accomplished by its use, has received the approval of Sir William Flower, Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, and the artist, J.G. Keulemans, who all visited the Museum to investigate the process. "In terms most unqualified he condemns the methods of mammal mounting practised by Mr. Montagu Browne at the Leicester Museum, and described in his recent work."[1] Dr. Shufeldt considers he is quite correct in pointing
- ↑ 'Practical Taxidermy,' vide 'Zoologist,' 1897, p. 378.
