Show no PEI 00 D r TH ra r 0 U N B esy HERE seems to be an impression in theroun try at large it if one may 1 u d g a e by inquiries which are made of the officials ot of the national museum that when vis igors come to washing ft ia 1 ton they will see spread 1 4 1 before them in the mu 0 seum s rooms the trophies 1 of the chase which theodore roose velt conducted in af f rica this la Is a mis a ken impression and 64 those who contemplate visiting washington in III the near future must make up their minds that while they may get glimpses of the roosevelt collection it will be a long time before the quarry will be mounted and presented to public view so as to show it to the best advantage of course it must be understood that by tar far the greater number of specimens of animal life which theodore roosevelt and his fellow hunters obtained are those of small species of the natural history kingdom foi every elephant obtained for instance there are at least fifty mice and tor for every lion there are at least fifty specimens of the dwellers of the field like the rabbits the squirrels the foxes and other animals which have their interest to the scientists but which do not make co 0 o brave a showing when on mu seum view as that of the greater wild beasts it Is the intention of the national museum authorities eventually to mount and to put on exhibition in family groups the great mammals which the east african expedition secured and sent to washington now the mounting of an elephant a lion a leopard an antelope or a or any of the other big creatures of the wild is an entirely different thing from the work of years ago no man nowadays properly speaks of at stuffed animals they are no longer stuffed the old unsightly specimens are being cast out of the museums of the country taxidermy has been from the plane of the trades and put on the plane of the arts in the old days it used to be the custom to take a deer and to wire it and fill it with various kinds of stuffing to put in glass eyes and to treat it with arsenic and then to stand it on its tour four legs in a glass case all this sort ol 01 thing has been done away with a as being thy the advanced taxidermist of today ap pro preaches aches bis his work just as the sculptor or the painter approaches his the animal family that Is to be mounted today Is studied carefully in life life no high class museum will employ a taxi dermitt who has not lived among the wild ani ant dials ml and who does not know their every poise their stride their appearance when lying down when standing up when asleep and when on the broad jump to att away from the enemy it requires years of this kind of study before the taxidermist of today is considered worthy of his hire when he takes a dead animal in hand to prepare it for tion he takes notice of the state of its coat whether it Is a spring coat a summer coat an autumn coat or a win ter coat if he Is to form a group of animals of the same kind he would never think tor for an in stant of putting one with a summer coat in the same group with one wearing a winter coat in some of the groups in the museums of the country today so called family groups the male deer will be shown in its winter coat while its mate standing by wears the garb ol 01 summer to the eye of the naturalist or to the e ee e of the observing hunter such a condition Is ludicrous and even the layman who Is not familiar with animals in their wild haunts becomes conscious that there Is something wrong with the animal family at which he N 1 looking nowadays not only Is it the aim to mount the animal na 13 but every vein and aery muscle must be made to appear as in life all of this requires the utmost skill and a great amount of time II 11 Is the intention of the national museum authorities to mount many of the larger roose velt specimens in family groups this means that in a great many instances these groups will be shown in their native habitats in other words not only must the animals be mounted properly but they must be given the environment which they have in the field this means in some cases the actual construction of trees with leaf trunk and branch perfect aid a id it means a reproduction of rocks an I 1 ground and it may be even e v en water the whole thing requires months of time the greatest skill and A allence and when the work la is complete the sigh sightseer teer has before him a group of african animals appearing lust just as they do in their native wilds elds from what has been said in the foregoing it readily can be understood why it is thit that it will take a long time to put the larger animals ie a cured by the roosevelt expedition tion in condition to be viewed by tre multitudes of visitors who come lo 10 washington carl E akely of chicago engaged in the aar i cai hunt tor for ashert time as a member of the Roose roosebelt Roo Nelt party mr air akely joined tho tha colonel in A rica in accor lance with an arrangement made before the former president left america mi ali p I 1 e y went to aiba not only for the pur 00 oo i f f 4 tt n some elephant specimens for the L aa 1 hf W ali A k 00 v 4 all 19 A ji N il k 5 ar fx A xa I 1 4 ZA ar Q q I 1 q V W N ap vi w aw aa 41 1 1 4 r W 2 A wak vv 1 1 4 aw W 04 for L MRM new york museum of natural history but lor for the purpose of studying elephants in their wild surroundings carl E akely la Is a taxidermist and Is considered one of the finest it if not the finest in the world More moreover he Is a scientist and his work has won on recognition in all the countries of the civilized world X what hat mr akely has been doing in the last few months gives an illustration of what the modern taxidermist does in order to perfect him self sell in his art when the taxidermist returns to america with the elephants which he has killed he will mount them in a great group in what Is to be knan as the elephant room of the great new nev york institution he ile not only will prepare tl a e elephants tor for exhibition in a group but he will reproduce their african surroundings it may be the cork work of years but when it is finished it will be worthy the museum officials of the country today believe that time Is as nothing when they desire to obtain the best natural results A curious thing bApp happened ened while carl E akely was with alth theodore roosevelt in africa in one of the articles which he wrote the colonel told of an experience which mr akely had with a wo leopard the enco inter which the tax Ider mist had with the leopard occurred about fourteen years ago and colonel roosevelt told the story as it had been told him ol 01 course putting it in the past tense the story was read wrong by some one and the american papers had an account of the desperate encounter of akely with a leopard while hunting with the roosevelt party and there was a good deal of 0 comment to the effect that it perhaps was mas a good thing tor for mr roosevelt that he was not the one who had I 1 ad this fierce fight with the african beast about fourteen bears ago mr akely who was then connected with the field museum of nat ural history in m chicago went ent to africa with dr daniel G elliot who was curator of zoology of the institution of which marshall field was the benefactor one night in the heart of africa mr akely was attempting to secure a leopard which was prowling around the camp trying to capture ne of the goats with which the expedition was supplied mr air akely shot the leopard and thought he had 1 filed it he ile went ent toward it but the beast sprang on him and bore him to earth he ile I 1 la a I 1 a ten eifle fight tor for his life he was terribly lacerated but he be fina ly succeeded actually in choking the leopard to death a feat which as may well tie be understood Is somewhat difficult of performance in tf tte a field museum of natural history in chicago there is on exi exl ibitson a group of ameri can deer perhaps it would be better to say four groups group they show the family life of the A A alaf 1 alstatt Aa 1 I 1 of america at all tour four seasons and ament of each season Is re reproduced produced one group ot of deer was secured in nother in fall another la in winter and spring and it Is possible in walking groups to see three 0 t the a animals an finals the doe and the young as they appear at afons of course the fawn Is seen in IT of sizes until it becomes a lusty of a deer group f aiom om the int of natural history Is given in order to show what may be elpe expected acted in the na museum at washington when the larger mammals main mals of the roosevelt collection are placed on exhibition of course instead of the A american merican red deer the visitor will see elephants lions arda ards and several of the many families of ante lopes which inhabit the african country there thera will be similar groups of the smaller animals alile tor for the purposes of the student of animal life there will be in drawers and in cases throughout the museum the skins and the skulls of the smaller mammals which are invaluable tor for purposes of comparison the trophies which former president noose velt has presented to the national museum are not the only gifts of value which he has made to the institution some years ag ago 0 when the colonel was hunting in oklahoma he be secured a specimen of what at first was thought to be a coyote the colonel had remembered that wood house a hunter naturalist of sixty years previous had obtained an animal in about the same pirt of the country which it was as held was neither a wolf nor a coyote but a sort of a connecting link between the two larger than the true coyote and smaller than the true wolf colonel roosevelt knew that there was some dispute as to the validity of the account of this species he obtained an animal which was oot not full biown but he concluded that it was different from either the coyote or the wolf and he be thought it might be of the species or variety that wood house had obtained he ile sent the animal to the scientists in washington and they became con vincel after a study of the woodhouse and the roosevelt Koo sevelt specimens that the theredo th ereno longer could be any doubt of the existence of a family inter mediate between the coyotes and the wolves the result was that an expedition was de dispatched Is spat patched ched to tho scene of the roosevelt hunting and success crowned its efforts the knowledge which the former president had of the wood house specimen and the study which he gave the specimen of his own taking led to the lish ment of a scientific fact of considerable value there Is now a fine series ot of the inter mediate wolves olves in the possession of the na lional authorities nearly one hundred years ago an English englishman maa claimed that the bear of the gulf states joutsi ana and mississippi was a different species from the ordinary black bear the matter was in lis tor for years among the scientists finally theodore Roos roosevelt eielt secured some specimens of the louisiana bear and sent them to dr C hart merriam then the chief of the biological survey in washington washingto i dr merriam recently has been given barge charge of the natural history foundation made possible by the generosity of mrs airs V harriman Harrl man dr merriam took the roosevelt bear sped mens in band hand and after a long anad painstaking study proved that the ordinary black bear ot of america and the bear of the cane brakes are different species thus settling a point that had been in doubt tor for nearly a century it was the roosevelt interest in the study of natural history t which led tn t the establishment of a tact fact if rp 4 ment to the scientific world |