Seamus Heaney, the great Irish poet, was deeply moved by Ireland's peat bogs and mined them for inspiration. I read about this in "The Great Irish Elk: Seamus Heaney's Personal Helicon" by William Pratt (World Literature Today, Spring 1996). In it, Pratt says, "Heaney had described his own creative process as if it had lain for a while in the earth beside the Great Irish elk: 'I have always listened for poems, they come sometimes like bodies come out of a bog, almost complete, seeming to have been laid down a long time ago, surfacing with a torch of mystery.'"
I read about the Chauvet cave in Dawn of Art: The Chauvet Cave, the Oldest Known Paintings in the World by Jean Clottes. "Grotte Chauvet Archeologically Dated" by Dr. Christian Zuchner of the Institute of Prehistory, University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, appeared in TRACCE (February 2000). This incredible iconographic study compares seven megaloceros paintings and motifs from different periods and caves in France.
British anatomist Richard Owen's questions about the skeletal and muscular structure of the Irish elk are from Gould's essay "A Lesson from the Old Masters."
The alarming rate of extinction is sadly easy to document. The United Nations figure is from "Global Diversity Outlook 2," a paper prepared by the Convention on Biological Diversity (2006). The New York Times article "A Rising Number of Birds at Risk" ran on December 1, 2007. The frightening statistics about China's dwindling mammal species and an account of its last two Yangtze giant soft-shell turtles both come from a particularly affecting article in the New York Times by Jim Yardley called "Then There Were Two: Turtles' Fate Shows Threat to China's Species," which ran on December 5, 2007. On June 12, 2007, the New York Times reported that the last two white rhinos in Zambia had been shot by poachers.
9. I STUFF A SQUIRREL
All flawed squirrel anatomy described in this chapter is my fault alone and in no way reflects the squirrel output at Schwendeman's Taxidermy Studio. David and Bruce did their best to turn a stuffer into a taxidermist; the rest was my undoing.
William Hornaday's quote about "stuffed monstrosities" is from his essay "Common Faults in the Mounting of Quadrupeds," which appeared in the SAT's 1884 annual report. This report also contains the information about the 1883 SAT convention and the exhibit "A Taxidermist's Sanctum."
Taxidermy manuals are fascinating to look at and to read. I mention four of them in this chapter: The Breakthrough Mammal Taxidermy Manual by Brent Houskeeper (B. Publications, 1990); Montagu Browne's Practical Taxidermy (1878); Oliver Davie's Methods in the Art of Taxidermy (1894); and William Hornaday's Taxidermy and Zoological Collecting (1891; I used the 1916 edition).
10. GRAY SQUIRREL, YELLOW DAWN
Leon Pray was an American taxidermist who wrote one of the most popular taxidermy manuals in the United States. In 1972, his Taxidermy was in its twenty-sixth edition. Bruce Schwendeman's exceptionally rare first-edition copy of Pray's "The Squirrel Mounting Book," a pamphlet published by Modern Taxidermist in 1938, sat on my desk for years, unopened.
I read about Roy Orbison on several Web sites, including Billboard online, Wikipedia, and RoyOrbison.com.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
WITHOUT THE PEOPLE who shared their lives with me, this book would not exist. My heartfelt thanks go to David and Bruce Schwendeman, Ken Walker, and Emily Mayer and their families. These gifted artists welcomed me into their homes and studios, fed me, lent me books and articles, and answered my questions until I finally understood. I will miss hanging around their workshops.
My thanks to all the taxidermists, collectors, scientists, curators, conservators, antiques dealers, artists, and enthusiasts for their unstinting contributions to this book. Taxidermists David Astley, Larry Blomquist, Carl Church, Jack Fishwick, Frank Greenwell, Jerry Jackson, Joe Kish, Dave Luke, Roger Martin, John Matthews, Paul Rhymer, Dave Spaul, Jan van Hoesen, and countless others helped me gain an understanding of their art form. Jessica Stevens was the kindest judge an amateur squirrel mounter could hope for.
My research was made easier by the assistance of the staff of the American Museum of Natural History library. I am grateful to thank Floyd Easterman for providing me with copies of the SAT annual reports and William Hornaday's personal scrapbook. Karen Wonders traded me a copy of "Habitat Dioramas" for a copy of Still Life; my book could not have existed without her scholarship. Conservator Catharine Hawks referred me to important sources and leads. Emma Hawkins faxed me two old Potter's catalogs. Conservation scientist Amandine Péquignot was a big help in the eleventh hour.
Fish curator Oliver Crimmen took me on two fascinating tours of the Natural History Museum storeroom and gave me useful articles; Pat Morris and Mary Burgis served as superb guides in England; and Steve Quinn led me around the AMNH dioramas and reviewed my Akeley chapter for accuracy. And Stephanie Adler-Yuan tackled the daunting task of fact checking the entire book.
A writer couldn't ask for a smarter agent, friend, and editor than Tina Bennett. Tina believed in this project through its growing pains and through what turned out to be many changes in the publishing world. Only Tina saw the potential of taxidermy before it was fashionable. Her exact words were, "Who knew there was so much life in taxidermy?"
I am indebted to David Corcoran of the New York Times for assigning the germinal article and Studio 360 for producing my radio segment on the Schwendemans.
Andrea Schulz and Eamon Dolan, book editors extraordinaire, vastly improved the book on every level,
