File:The American Museum journal (c1900-(1918)) (17971953578).jpg

Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo14amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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THE STORY OF MUSEUM GROUPS 13 in plaster, and the making of a light and durable form upon which the skin is deftly placed, copying the folds and wrinkles of life. If he who delves among books in various dead and living languages to decide which of the numerous many- syllabled names some small creature is rightly entitled to bear does not object to being called a taxonomist, he who works upon the skins of creatures great and small should not object to the right- ful name of taxidermist. So taxidermist let it be for the present, or vmtil a better name is coined. The group of Arab and Lions was fol- lowed about a decade later, 1880, by the group of orangs collected by Hornaday, mounted by him shortly after his return from a two years' collecting trip around the world and presented to the Museum by Robert Colgate. This again leads us to note that the energy of Dr. Hornaday had much to do with the formal introduction of animal groups into the American Museum of Natural History and recognition of their place in museum work, because Jenness Richardson was a pupil of Hornaday, and Rowley in turn a pupil of Richard- son and by them, and under their super- vision was begun the series of groups now justly famous. These early groups did not find their way into museums without protest as may be imagined from the remarks of Dr. Coues quoted on a previous page but in 1887 the first group of mammals was installed in the United States Na- tional Museum, and this was followed a year later by a large group of bison. The other day, when listening to the protest of a curator against the with- drawal of a certain group from exhibition, we wondered if he remembered another protest, against the introduction of a bone that a coyote might have some excuse for action. Verily tcmpora inu- tantur. An important factor in the evolution of groups and their introduction into museums was the development of the art, for art it is, of making accessories, for without the ability to reproduce flowers and foliage in materials that would at once have the semblance of reality, and endurance under the vicissi- tudes of temperature in the intemperate zone in which most museums are located.
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Manikin of wire cloth and papier-mache by Remi and Joseph Santens. Photograph to illustrate strength of modern manikin half the charm and value of groups would be lacking. For progress in this direction we are indebted primarily to the Messrs. Mintorn of London and their sister, Mrs. Mogridge, who devised methods and reproduced the foliage in the groups of birds in the British Mu- seum, and who later came to New York to carry on the same work for the small bird groups.^ 1 A description of these methods, improved upon by apt pupils is to be found in Plant Forms in Wax, Guide Leaflet No. 34, published by the American Museum.

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