  This subject is more of interest to the museum preparator than the home taxidermist, but a short consideration of it is not out of place here. Many instructive and pleasing little groups of our smaller mammals and birds can be prepared for display in the home. Such groups usually require casing for protection but are well worth the trouble and expense. Always try to make a group mean something. Let the subjects be feeding, fighting or occupied in any natural way. Family groups showing the male and female, adults and young, in the home surroundings are always good. The seasonal groups of Spring, Autumn, Summer and Winter have been produced by most bird taxidermists at some time. Appropriate varieties of small birds are the blue birds for Spring; gold finches, Autumn; yellow birds or tanagers, Summer; snow birds, Winter. Framed with painted backgrounds and suitable accessories their shallow wall cases may be hung like pictures. SQUIRRELS—GREY, RED, FLYING, GROUND (CHIP MUNK) Never make the mistake of grouping animals that would never meet in natural circumstances or furnish them with incongruous surroundings. The arrangement of groups for the exhibition cases of museums is very exacting as they are made open to the view on all sides. In order to judge of the affect such groups are modelled in miniature clay figures which are changed and re-arranged until satisfactory before the mounting is begun. Such work is rather out of our province but an intelligent arrangement of two or more figures can be made to convey many more ideas than a single one would suggest. Some of the most striking groups are those of the larger carnivora in combat, but they hardly possess the real value of painstaking life studies of some of our more familiar kindred of the wild. |
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