Читать книгу In Brightest Africa онлайн

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I finally got the four deer groups finished and the Field Museum bought them at the price agreed upon. When I figured it out financially I found that I had come out even on my expenditures for labour and materials but for my own time and for profit there was nothing. However, I had the experience and the method and I felt that it was a pretty good four years' work.

In the old days at Ward's a taxidermist was a man who took an animal's skin from a hunter or collector and stuffed it or upholstered it. By the time I had finished the deer groups I had become pretty well convinced that a real taxidermist needed to know the technique of several quite different things.

First, he must be a field man who can collect his own specimens, for other people's measurements are never very satisfactory, and actual study of the animals in their own environment is necessary in making natural groups.

Second, he must know both animal anatomy and clay modelling in order to make his models.

Third, he should have something of the artistic sense to make his groups pleasing as well as accurate.