TAXIDERMY—DE OMNIBUS REBUS.
By Oxley Grabham, M.A., M.B.O.U.
At my suggestion that a small portion of 'The Zoologist' should be devoted to the above science in all its branches, whereby many who, like myself, are deeply interested in the matter could exchange ideas and views to our mutual benefit, the Editor has most courteously replied as follows:—"I am entirely in sympathy with your views respecting the admittance of taxidermal notes into 'The Zoologist.' I cannot imagine a science of zoology which is not dependent more or less on some knowledge of animal preservation: now, as to method! I will devote a section of our Notes and Queries to Taxidermy and Preservation of Animal Specimens, which will focus correspondence. . . . The difficulties I see are possible lack of contributions on the subject, and confining it in a purely non-professional area." With regard to contributions, I venture to hope that these will be ample, for most naturalists, be their speciality what it may, are of necessity to a certain extent collectors also. Few dwellers in the country have access to a well-stocked museum containing all the types and varieties of whatever branch of zoology they happen to be specially interested in, and therefore they either preserve their own specimens, or get a professional to do it for them. To many people the term collector is synonymous with exterminator, and I am sorry to say that in numerous cases this is only too true, and it is owing to the greed and the search after £ s. d. of these so-called naturalists that many of our rarer species, both of fauna and flora, are rapidly becoming exterminated; but I am writing now of the naturalist in the truest sense of the word, who only collects where there is the certainty of an ample number of living specimens being left, and where, through accident or otherwise, various rarities from time to time fall into his hands. Surely in such cases as these no one can find fault with the wish to preserve and save from decay any
