Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1917-10-16

VxTASHINGTON, D. c., October 12.-Every day
wv dozens of sightseers visit the national
museum. Usually, they intend to spend
only few minutes their way from the capitol
to the treasury-just to see if it compares favor
ably with the picture on the postcard-and they
end by staying hours. For here, at last, science
has condescended to speak the language of the peo-
pie. At last natural history has been made
natural.
Instead of stiff, stufy figures on square pedes
tails, there life-like animal groups posed amid
their native scenery. An animal is shown tread
ing the same kind of ground he trod in real life
sometimes the actual ground itself, which has been
gathered and shipped in with the specimen. The
bushes, branches and stones that were about him
in his native habitat about him. In short the
visitor does not have to read card to know that
animal is native to arctic regions or the tropics
If you observe very closely the visitors mean
dering through the animal collections you will find
that while few of them do not read the cards at
tached to the cases. the majority of them do Their
curiosity is aroused by the various details pre-
scented in each group And this is the reward of
science for having made itself popular. Instead of
helping to educate few students and interest
few professors 1t is helping to educate the masses
This is the triumph of the new taxidermy.
The new art of taxidermy was not solved, how
ever, without strong protest from the scientific
conservatives. For years taxidermst little
more than upholsterer. He stuffed his animals
with straw, stuck couple of glass eyes in each
head, and considered his work finished. 1t was
enough to know that any scientist visiting the
museum would recognize the species. Then a few
natuTalists began to enter the profession. To them
the ordinary stuffed animal revolving, and they
began to apply their skill in taxidermy towards
achieving more natural effects
There is some doubt as to who made the first
animal group but it is certain that the stir it caused
not less than that caused by the first Cubist
picture. Now the newer taXidermy is practiced all
over the country, although some museums still
cling to the old methods. The modern taxidermist
is not upholsterer bat a sculptor, and many
and sometimes explorer and collector we'll. A
Smithsonian taXidermist is now in Australia gath
ering specimens, which he will later mount
The taXidermy work connected with the ma
tional museum is carried on in a large two-story
shed behind the Smithsonian building. Most peo-
pie mistake it for stable Inside, effort has
been made to maintain the careful neatness of all
the other government scientific quarters. The floor
is splattered with white plaster; cans of paint and
paint brushes strewn about the floor, and the
walls decorated with all sorts of skins and
to the ceiling is a California whale fourteen feet
long. The other day young taXidermist at
work the plaster cast of big wolf whose
beautiful yellowish- skin hung a rack
above him. On a table its skull containing
set of teeth that had once been the terror Of a
certain part of Montana.
This animal had been captured only after
long and arduous campaign waged against him by
Montana horse-owners, whose stock he had killed
in large numbers. For months he matched his
cunning against the craftiness of ranchmen, and
always won. In vain did they set traps for him.
He could not be induced to touch poisoned meat,
and he could sense an iron trap mile off, having
once lost part of his foot in But success
made him careless and eventually the ranchers tri