Stuffed Stuff

The Teaching Specimen

I spotted this in the Oxford Museum of Natural History, while I was there doing some research. I’m not quite sure I think about it, except that it struck my contemporary eyes as being both weird and sad.

I’m going to guess it dates from Victorian times - the “Heyday of Natural History” - when shooting as many things as possible and then displaying them in this seemingly detached, objective way was seen as the height of scientific nature appreciation. In a way, they were trying to classify themselves as scientists as much as they were classifying the animals.

One thing that’s strange about this is that it’s somewhere between a pressed flower and taxidermy. It’s just a little sample of a specimen on a display card. But those sad, dull eyes have been deliberately added by a taxidermist, so that instead of being a straightforward fragment of an organism (as a skull might be) it is able to stare blankly back out at us. There’s something about the angle of it, too. You may not be able to tell from the picture, but it’s attached at around 45˚ - not laid flat (like a nearby duck’s head), nor upright as it would have been in life. It makes me want to tilt it up a bit, just to give it some dignity back.

This was clearly intended as a teaching specimen. But all I can learn about the bird from this piece is its Linnaean classification and that it had a hooked beak for tearing prey. Instead, what I really end up uncovering are some of my own emotional responses to taxidermy and its history.