GROUPS AND GROUPING.
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.
Never make the mistake of grouping animals that would never meet in
natural circumstances or furnish them with incongruous surroundings.
[Illustration: SQUIRRELS--GREY, RED, FLYING, GROUND (CHIP MUNK)]
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.