While the mammal judges examined tongues for taste buds, inner nostrils for septums, and backsides for anuses, I tagged along with the bird judges, whose visual dissections were somehow less invasive. (As Kish told me, bird taxidermists are usually expert naturalists because they go outdoors and closely study bird behavior.) Bird taxidermists are, for the most part, birders. However, whereas birders tend to seek out rarity, bird taxidermists are interested primarily in common species: nuanced archetypes. Tagging along with the bird judges felt a lot like walking through a nature preserve, although it's much easier to spot a clapper rail in a ballroom than in an overgrown salt marsh. The five judges moved in a flock from bird to bird, troubled by unsightly covet feathers, crude eye rings, and other misdemeanors. Although I hadn't seen many of the species before, a bird book was unnecessary. The judges—one of whom had memorized every single Latin species name—were five walking field guides, and I jotted down their comments.
ROCK PTARMIGAN: "The left eye is off."
NORTHERN SHOVELER: "No detail in the mandible. He's not aerodynamic. Secondary wings are distorted."
AMERICAN WIDGEON: "I like the drop of the crop and the flatness of the wings. Each wing is a unit working. I like the rump."
EASTERN WILD TURKEY: "It's the plastic foliage I find so disturbing. But it's a damn good turkey."
ANOTHER TURKEY: "This turkey here, he's after that grasshopper. He's got attitude!"
CAPERCAILLIE: "Exposed wires in the Master Division is a no-no."
MALLARD: "Silly duck!"
WATERFOWL: "Looks like they've walked here from Chicago! Waterfowl have sleek, feminine feet."
The bird judges argued and squawked until their eyes landed on a mount that left everyone speechless. It wasn't something regal and symbolic like a bald eagle or exotic like a brilliantly plumed macaw, but two English tree sparrows, one protecting its nest from the other: a subtle narrative with a delightful mise en scène. Bird droppings indicated that the sparrows inhabited the area. A feather in one sparrow's beak animated the process of building a nest. Crouching down to see it from all sides, the judges detected not a single flaw. "The sideshow is three hundred sixty degrees," they agreed, gazing into the little world before them as if it were alive. The sparrows, lovingly preserved by Uwe Bauch of Ammelshain, Germany, exemplified the category. In fact, they exemplified the show.
It was nearly midnight when I opened my notebook and read the list of birds I had seen. As I wondered aloud whether I could add a few species to my life list, the British bird judge Jack Fishwick snapped, "This is a death list! You can add them to your death list!"
In the morning, my eyes ached, my mind was reeling, and I understood why taxidermists use the word "anatomical" to describe each other—as in "He's getting too anatomical." I had had enough anatomical minutiae for now—maybe forever. But I still hadn't been down to the taxidermy trade fair—the subterranean world where you can buy products and services that may, on the surface, seem illegal, immoral, or haltingly bizarre: lion pelts with intact claws, whiskers, tails, and manes; chicken feet injection fluid; frozen raccoons ($50 each); artificial coyote throats; mink teeth; fish eye sockets; fox urine; and tanned sable scrotums ($7.50 apiece).
The first thing that caught my attention was a live demonstration that had attracted a crowd of spectators. A taxidermist in blue surgical gloves was sewing the cape of a big-horned aoudad sheep, a species normally found in northern Africa. (This one had died at an exotic-game ranch in Texas or Missouri.) Answering questions as he drew a threaded needle through its skin, he could have been demonstrating how to operate a new car or refrigerator. I watched for a bit, amazed and bewildered. Then wandered down an aisle, passing rows and rows of polyurethane deer, boar, and bear manikins resembling yellow fetuses, until I came upon a freeze-dried monkey holding a tiny, hand-lettered sign that said FREEZE DRY YOUR PETS! I quickly moved on. At the end of the row, shoppers at a booth of tanned pelts peeled back skins one by one as if they were broadloom carpet samples.
The range of anatomical wares was dizzying, and they were all unfathomably legal. At Skulls Unlimited, the world's largest osteological specimen supplier, a Goth-looking salesman manned a table of skeletal remains (mandibles, skulls, exotic horns). He was describing how taxidermists, skeleton assemblers, and museums use dermestid beetle colonies to eat the flesh off skeletons so that their intricate structures stay articulated. At the Tohickon booth, thousands of glass eyes, each painstakingly crafted, stared up at browsers. The fox, bobcat, and lynx eyes were hand-veined and hand-colored, and they had the accurate slit pupil (offered in two widths, depending on whether the taxidermist wants to portray his mount in daylight or at dusk).
Only Fred Fehrmann, the bearded owner of a fake-fur factory in Lawrence, Massachusetts, seemed vaguely out of place—that is to say, urbane, East Coast, and decidedly not anatomical. This despite the pronunciation of his name: "fur-man." Fehrmann manufactures polyester fur of the theatrical variety, the kind of synthetic tresses big Hollywood productions use to create monsters, yetis, and talking lemurs. Fehrmann's typical clients are LA prop men, Manhattan costume designers, and stylists who don't, for instance, shoot lions in order to make lion costumes. Banking on his success in show business, Fehrmann thought he'd have crossover appeal with taxidermists. He was mostly wrong. "That stuff is made to fool a camera, not a taxidermist," said Walker indignantly. Although taxidermists freely use fake septums, fake eyelashes, and fake claws, they'd rather die than use fake fur. More modelmaking. This may explain why Fehrmann's booth was quiet, drawing few taxidermists but lots of children, who came by to pet swatches of the Grinch, the Teletubbies, the Hamburglar, and Rum Tum Tugger from the Broadway musical Cats.
For me, Fehrmann's
