n wire
was under the sternum. He then passed a wire into each claw, so that
the extremities of the wire united to pass into the little ring; he
bent these extremities within, and fixed them with a string to the
iron in the middle of the vertebral column. He replaced the flesh by
flax, or chopped cotton, sewed up the bird, placed it on a foot or
support of wood, and gave it a suitable attitude, of which he was
always sure--for a bird thus mounted could only bend in its natural
posture (?). He prepared quadrupeds in the same manner.

It remains for us to speak of a little work published by Henon and
Mouton Fontenelle. They had at first no other object than to read
their manuscript to the Athenaeum at Lyons, of which they were
members. They were earnestly solicited to print it, and published it
in 1802. The authors speak of birds only. They describe an infinity of
methods practised by others, and compare them to their own, which,
without doubt, are preferable, but too slow to satisfy the impatience
of ornithologists.

The book from which I have just quoted seems to have been the only
reliable text book known at that period, and with the exception of
certain modern improvements in modelling and mounting, contains a mass
of--for that day--valuable elementary information. In fact, the French
and German taxidermists were then far in advance of us, a stigma which
we did not succeed in wiping off until after the Great Exhibition of
1851.

Although, as I have just said, the French and Germans excelled us in
the setting up of specimens, yet their collections did not, in all
cases, exceed ours in point of interest or magnitude, for the old
taxidermists had been at work prior to 1725, at which date it is
recorded that the museum of Sir Hans Sloane (the nucleus of our
British Museum collection) contained the following number of
specimens: Mammals, 1194; birds, 753; reptiles, 345; fishes, 1007. A
gradual increase appeared by 1753, when the figures stood: Mammals,
1886; birds, 1172; reptiles, 521; fishes, 1555. A great proportion of
these were, however, not stuffed specimens, but simply bones and
preparations of fleshy parts in spirits. Nothing shows the gradual
rise and progress of taxidermy better than the history of the British
Museum, which, under the then name of Montagu House, was opened to the
public by special ticket on Jan. 15, 1759.

Soon after its opening the natural history collections appear to have
claimed more inte