. Wanderings in South America, the north-west of the United States and the Antilles in the years 1812, 1816, 1820 & 1824 : with original instructions for the perfect preservation of birds, etc. for cabinets of natural history . hem,drew them from their concealment and laid them in theirplaces. So, the breasts of his humming-birds simply blazedwith gold, ruby, azure, or emerald, according to their species,as they did. in life. 508 TAXIDERMY. The same patient care enabled liirn to give to all feathersand furs the flow which they possessed in life, and whichno method except his own has been able
. Wanderings in South America, the north-west of the United States and the Antilles in the years 1812, 1816, 1820 & 1824 : with original instructions for the perfect preservation of birds, etc. for cabinets of natural history . hem,drew them from their concealment and laid them in theirplaces. So, the breasts of his humming-birds simply blazedwith gold, ruby, azure, or emerald, according to their species,as they did. in life. 508 TAXIDERMY. The same patient care enabled liirn to give to all feathersand furs the flow which they possessed in life, and whichno method except his own has been able to restore. Waterton also found that two pieces of skin if properlymoulded together while wet, would adhere to each other firmly,and that a little fine glue would cause them to unite as onepiece. It was through the knowledge of this fact that he wasable to produce the ludicrous combinations of different crea-tures which he placed in his museum and ticketed with allkinds of quaint names. There was for example, Noctifer, or the Spirit of Night,made of portions of a bittern and an eagle owl, both nocturnalbirds. Then he had an absurd group of John Bull surrounded bydifficulties, John Bull was a tortoise with the head of an. exceedingly stout but exceedingly worried man. He was sup-porting the eight hundred millions of national debt, to whichsuch frequent reference is made both in the Wanderingsfind Essays. Clinging to his back, and driving its clawsinto him, is perched Diabolus bellicosus, a soi-t of grin-ning lizard all over abnormal spikes and horns. Before him TAXIDERMY. 509 goes Diabolus ambitiosus, with outspread wings. Dia-bolus illudens is guiding him on his path, and Diabolusc^eruleus, with its open mouth and shaip teeth, is bringingup the rear. The museum was full of these taxidermal jokes, and notlong before his death I procured for him a quantity of theexuviae of the serpents in the Zoological Gardens, so that hemight work them into new combinations. Whether he didso I
Size: 1439px × 1736px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, bookidwanderingsin, bookyear1885
