This vintage volume contains a complete handbook on taxidermy and zoological collecting, with information that will appeal to the amateur taxidermist, collector, osteologist, sportsman, and traveller. With helpful illustrations and a wealth of useful information, this volume is highly recommended for the novice taxidermist, and would make for a worthy addition to collections of related literature. Contents include: “The Worker and the Work to be Done”, “Outfits, and Hints on Hunting”, “How to Select and Study Fresh Specimens”, “Treatment of the Skins of Small Mammals”, “Collecting and Preserving the Skins of Large Mammals”, Collecting Reptiles”, etc. Many vintage books like this are becoming increasingly hard-to-come-by and expensive. We are republishing this volume now in an affordable, high-quality addition complete with a specially commissioned new introduction on taxidermy.

In these heydays of popular zoology, when eager young naturalists are coming to the front in crowds, and fine new scientific museums are starting up on every hand, there is small need to apologize for the appearance of a work designed expressly for the naturalist and museum-builder. Had justice been done, some one would have written this book ten years ago. The rapid and alarming destruction of all forms of wild animal life which is now going on furiously throughout the entire world, renders it imperatively necessary for those who would build up great zoological collections to be up and doing before any more of the leading species are exterminated. It is already too late to collect wild specimens of the American bison, Californian elephant seal, West Indian seal, great auk, and Labrador duck. Very soon it will also be too late to collect walrus, manatee, fur seal, prong-horn antelope, elk, moose, mountain sheep, and mountain goat. All along the Atlantic coast and in Florida the ducks are being exterminated for the metropolitan markets, and the gulls, terns, herons, egrets, ibises, and spoonbills are being slaughtered wholesale for the equally bloodthirsty goddess of Fashion. If the naturalist would gather representatives of all these forms for perpetual preservation, and future study, he must set about it at once. This work is offered as my contribution to the science of zoology and the work of the museum-builder. It is entirely "an affair of the heart," and my only desire in regard to it is that it may be the means of materially increasing the world's store of well-selected and well-preserved examples of the beautiful and interesting animal forms that now inhabit the earth and its waters. The sight of a particularly fine animal, either[viii] alive or dead, excites within me feelings of admiration that often amount to genuine affection; and the study and preservation of such forms has for sixteen years been my chief delight.

"A narrative microhistory of the Field Museum of Natural History's groundbreaking expedition to hunt and preserve rare African animal specimens for its collection before it went extinct due to modern progress and natural selection, a common view among natural historians as the 1800s came to a close"--

This early work on the art of taxidermy, Montagu Browne, was originally published in 1896. It is designed as an instructive manual on the various methods and processes involved in taxidermy, and includes chapters such as 'The Tools Used in Taxidermy and Modelling', 'The Collecting of Mammals, Birds, and Other Vertebrates, and Invertebrates, by Various Methods', 'The Skinning and Setting-Up of Birds by Various Methods', 'The Mounting of Animals in an Artistic Manner', and much more. Accompanied by many illustrations, this is a fantastic read for anyone with an interest in learning the skills of taxidermy. To compliment the republication of this work, a brand new introduction on the history of Taxidermy has been included.

The Museum in America captures the life stories of thirteen visionary museum leaders who helped transform the 19th century's collection of curios into today's institution of public service and education. In the lively style of Museum Masters, Alexander recounts the stories of pioneers in American history, science, art, and general museums. For anyone interested in the history of the museum, this volume is the place to start.

On a rainy day in May 1988, a lowland gorilla named Willie B. stepped outdoors for the first time in twenty-seven years, into a new landscape immersion exhibit. Born in Africa, Willie B. had been captured by an animal collector and sold to a zoo. During the decades he spent in a cage, zoos stopped collecting animals from the wild and Americans changed the ways they wished to view animals in the zoo. Zoos developed new displays to simulate landscapes like the Amazon River basin and African forests. Exhibits similar to animals' natural habitats began to replace old-fashioned animal houses. But such displays are only the most recent effort of zoos to present their audiences with an authentic experience of nature. Since the first zoological park opened in the United States in Philadelphia in 1874, zoos have promised their visitors a journey into the natural world. And for more than a century they have been popular places for education and recreation: every year more than 130 million Americans go to zoos to look at the animals and enjoy a day outdoors. The first book-length history of American zoos, Animal Attractions examines the meaning of nature in the city by looking at the ways zoos have assembled and displayed their animal collections. Situated literally and culturally in the American middle landscape, zoos are concrete expressions of longstanding tensions between wildness and civilization, science and popular culture, education and entertainment. In their efforts to promote nature appreciation, they reveal much about how our culture envisions the natural world and the human place in it and how these ideas have changed.