se are found in Game, Fur and
Fish Laws of the various states and Canadian provinces. Fur and game
animals and birds killed legally during open season may be preserved by
the taker for private possession without hindrance anywhere, I think.
More explicit details may be had on application to your state fish and
game commissioner or warden.

[Signature: Albert B. Farnham.]

Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit

CHAPTER I.

HISTORY.

It is very evident that this art--Taxidermy, preservation or care of
skins--had its origin far back before the dawn of written history. There
existed then as now the desire to preserve the trophy of the hunter's
prowess and skill and the unusual in natural objects.

As far back as five centuries B. C. in the record of the African
explorations of Hanno the Carthaginian, an account is given of the
discovery of what was evidently the gorilla and the subsequent
preservation of their skins, which were, on the return of the voyagers,
hung in the temple of Astarte, where they remained until the taking of
Carthage in the year 146 B. C.

This, of course, was not the art as we know it now, but shows the
beginnings of what might be called the museum idea. The art of embalming
as practiced by the ancient Egyptians was, however, effective, not for
the purpose of having the specimens look natural, or for exhibition, but
to satisfy the superstition of the times, and though a preservative art,
hardly to be classed with taxidermy.

In the tombs of that period are found besides the mummies of human
beings, countless others of dogs, cats, monkeys, birds, sheep and oxen.
There have been a number of efforts made to substitute some form of
embalming for present day taxidermy but without much success, for though
the body of the specimen may be preserved from decay without removing it
from the skin, the subsequent shrinkage and distortion spoil any effect
which may have been achieved.

[Illustration: AN EARLY DAY SPECIMEN.]

The first attempt at stuffing and mounting birds was said to have been
made in Amsterdam in the beginning of the 16th century. The oldest
museum specimen in existence, as far as I know, is a rhinoceros in the
Royal Museum of Vertebrates in Florence, Italy, said to have been
originally mounted in the 16th century.

Probably on account of the necessary knowledge of preservative
chemicals, the art seems to have been in the hands of chemists and
astrologers, chiefly, during t