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my-ear-trumpet:

exilebibliophile:

Home Taxidermy by h3_six on Flickr.

Albert B. Farnham. CR 1944
It is downloadable from project guttenberg if you would like to see inside.

This volume of the Pleasure and Profit Library is offered to the hunter, trapper, fisher, vacationist and out of doors people in general. In the study and practice of taxidermy for several years I have failed to find any work written primarily for these every day nature lovers, though they probably handle a greater number of interesting specimens of animal life than all other classes of people.

In view of this fact the following directions and suggestions for preserving various animal forms as objects of use and ornament have been prepared. As a treatise for the scientist or museum preparator it is not intended, there are many books on the art expressly for them, but we hope it may fill a place of its own, acting as a not too dry and technical introduction to the art preservative for those who find life all too short for the many things which are to be done.

Thoroughness, patience, and some love for nature, are qualities highly desirable in this art. Work prepared by one possessing these qualities need not be ashamed and practice will bring skill and perfection of technic.

As a handicraft in which the workman has not been displaced or made secondary by a machine taxidermy is noticeable also, and for many reasons is worthy of its corner in the home work-shop.

In this work also the ladies can take a very effective hand, and numbers have done so; for there is no doubt that a woman’s taste and lightness of touch enables her in some branches of taxidermy to far exceed the average man. Especially in the manipulation of frail skins and delicate feathers, in bird taxidermy, is this so.

(via scientificillustration)