Some months ago Alan Friswell, the bloke who made the CFZ Feegee Mermaid and also the guy responsible for some of the most elegantly macabre bloggo postings, wrote me an email. He had an idea for a new series for the bloggo. Quite simply he has an enormous collection of macabre, fortean, odd and disturbing magazine and newspaper articles, and he proposed to post them up on the bloggo.
Although I'm not exactly--to say the least--unfamiliar with taxidermy techniques, and consequently, cannot be too overly critical of those who practice it on a regular, professional basis, there is, I have to admit, something revolting about the image of an animal--particularly an endangered species--that has been stuffed and mounted. These images of a gorilla become even more disgusting when we read that the bastards who killed it also murdered--not too extreme a word, I think--its mate and baby. Still, there is a fascination in the process and it has to be said, they made a good job of bringing the poor sod 'back to life.'
Here's another famous stuffed gorilla, poor old Guy from London Zoo. The point of interest here is that the taxidermy work was carried out by Arthur Hayward, head of department at the Natural History Museum. Hayward had worked with Ray Harryhausen on the dinosaurs for One Million Years BC and The Valley of Gwangi.
as it happens ,this weeks copy of the Wakefield Express carries an article regarding the possibility of the first gorilla to reach britain actually forming part of an exhibit in Wakefield museum.It holds the Charles waterton collection an eccentric naturalist who stuffed lots of animals using his own process.he also create composite animals to depict political satires.One of these is entitled martin Luther in hell and features a horned ape.They are now speculating that he may have used the body of the first gorilla to reach these shores to form the body as he was friendly with Wombwell's mengerie who featured it.
ReplyDeletethere is a Radio 4 programme about it on this week and which will be on iplayer.