The sportsman's handbook to collecting, preserving, and setting-up trophies & specimens : together with a guide to the hunting grounds of the world

Front matter

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Preface To The Tenth Edition

Thirty years have elapsed since the publication of the first edition of the Sportsman’s Handbook , and as that period has been one of great activity as regards the opening up of the world, vast changes have occurred in respect to opportunities and localities for big-game shooting. Civilisation has, for instance, invaded districts and countries where Nature had previously reigned supreme. This has been especially the case in parts of Southern and Eastern Africa, where British East Africa has been opened up and rendered thoroughly accessible to the sportsman. Alaska, again, has become a famous sporting locality, where some of the biggest game in the whole world are attainable with comparatively little difficulty ; while in Asia sportsmen have penetrated into the previously almost unknown province of Sze-chuen, and some of the adjacent districts of Tibet.

In the present edition the text has been thoroughly revised and brought up to date, with considerable expansion of the section on the “ Hunting Fields of the World.'" All the original illustrations have been redrawn or rephotographed, and a number of new ones added.

Here I may take the opportunity of according my best thanks to Mr. Lydekker for revising and expanding the Hunting Fields section ; and likewise of expressing

XL xii THE SPORTSMAN'S HANDBOOK

my acknowledgments to Messrs. F. C. Selous and R. J. Cuninghame for valuable assistance in other parts of the work.

In this place reference may also be made to the illustration of the “ McCarte Lion,” which appears for

SIDE VIEW OF HEAD OF THE McCARTE LION, MODELLED BY HOWLAND WARD, 1874.

See page 13$.

the first time in this volume. It represents the model of a wounded lion made by myself in 1874 ; the animal, which is supposed to have been struck by a bullet behind the shoulder, being shown in a sitting posture,

PREFACE TO THE TENTH EDITION

Xlll growling with rage, and on the look-out for its enemy. At the time it was made this model attracted considerable attention on the part of the public, as it represented a totally new era in taxidermy, destined to supplant the old-fashioned “ stuffing ” processes which up to that time had held the field.

The first large group which I modelled in the new style was a “ Combat of Red Deer.” This was shown in the Scientific Inventions and New Discoveries section of the London International Exhibition of 1871, and formed the subject of an article in the Daily Telegraph of that year, entitled “ Wardian Taxidermy.” In this process the animals were first modelled in a paste or cement invented by myself, which could be so manipulated as to present the natural configuration of the body, but afterwards set so solidly as to become in effect a statue. The actual skulls and limb-bones of the animals were incorporated in the model and overlaid with my composition. When the modelling of the whole group was complete, the skins were fitted on to the animals, with the aid of a fatty preparation. Further extracts from the press of 1871-6 in relation to this matter are appended later on in this volume, which afford additional information with regard to the earlier models made by this process. As evidence of its durability, it may be mentioned that the head of a heifer, “ Lady Flora,” modelled in 1873, was found, when examined in January, 1911, after being hung up for over thirty-seven years, to be in as perfect preservation as when first made.

This method of modelling and mounting animals, invented by myself some forty years ago, is still used at my London establishment. It has never been surpassed, and I know of no other method by

XIV which the muscular structure of animals is so well displayed.

I refer to this subject at some length on account of the circumstance that just three years ago this method was illustrated in a London weekly journal as a new American invention ; this very same journal having about thirty-seven years previously published illustrations, with favourable comments, upon some of my earlier modellings of the same type. Nor is this all, for only last year an attempt was actually made to patent my process in India. And I think it may be safely said that so far at least as taxidermy is concerned, England has nothing to learn from America or any other country ; as a proof of which it may be mentioned that natural history specimens modelled in my studios are to be found in every civilised country of the world.

As further testimony to the same effect the following extract on the excellence of the work of English taxidermists may be quoted : —

“ The finest animal study of ancient or modern times was achieved by one of them — the ‘ Lion and Tiger Struggle,5 exhibited at Paris, and afterwards at the Sydenham Crystal Palace. This, and two analogous works, carried the English to the foremost ranks of zoological artists ; and now that we embellish our taxidermic studies with natural grasses, ferns, etc., and with representations of scenery and rock-work, in the endeavour to carry the eye and mind to the actual localities in which the various species of animals are found — an advance in art not dreamed of fifty years ago — and also to correctly model the heads and limbs of animals, we still hold our own, and are as far advanced in taxidermy as any other nation."

PREFACE TO THE TENTH EDITION xv

Finally, it may be mentioned that since the date of publication of the first edition of this work great advances have been made in the methods of preserving specimens in the field for home shipment. Formerly it was quite common on opening cases from abroad to [find their contents more or less completely ruined by the attacks of skin and fur-eating insects. Now such catastrophes are far less frequent.

ROWLAND WARD.

Piccadilly, April , 1911.

MODELLED EY THE LATE EDWIN WAKD,

Preface To The First Edition

I have made an endeavour, in the following pages, to present to the sportsman-naturalist some information that may be valuable to him as derived solely from experience — either the accumulated experience of my family, of whom I am now the only representative in our profession, or the carefully collected experience of others in those parts of the subject where my own work has not carried me. My grandfather was a practical naturalist ; my father, the late Henry Ward, became eminent in the same way, but with some remarkable advantages, having travelled much in pursuit of his profession in both hemispheres, and notably as the companion of Audubon, when that distinguished man was so greatly enriching and extending the field of natural history. I have been greatly assisted by the information given me by many travellers and true sportsmen. It has been my object to avoid mere speculative opinion and to make the book as concise as might be.

It is only in comparatively recent times that taxidermy has been elevated to claim any real art position. What has been gained for it has not been achieved by mere skill, but by extended and more accurate observation of nature in its living forms — of the behaviour and habits of animals, not simply examination of their carcases, or what remained of them. Such b

XVII observation, carefully and correctly recorded, is invaluable to the naturalist who seeks, by the preservation unimpaired of the natural features of an animal, to use the verisimilitude so obtained as an aid to art illustration. The material means for such a result are indeed important ; but something more may be done with a prepared group of animals, or a single specimen, than preservation for the identification of details in anatomy or of outward appearance. Its value to the student may be preserved and increased by displaying its beauty truthfully to life, while the beauty is recognised for its own sake by even the unscientific. This is the cause I advocate, and the end I have in view.

R. W.

12 tli May, IS 80.