Transcribe Hornaday, W. T. Letter to Ward, Henry A. (1881-08-19)

great odds the hardest job either of us had ever worked upon. You can form no idea of the back-breaking and body wearing nature of that work. Of course I stood it a great deal better than Mr Bailly, for I am young & strong but I many times felt a real pity for him, and did not greatly begrudge him the $3. pr week he received more than I.

    At my home I have mounted a very handsome setter

dog with which I will try to keep up the reputation of the Establishment at Boston next Nov. I consider it the best piece of work I have yet done. It is my </u ideal > of what a stuffed animal should be. The skin was in good order & thoroughly soft. And yet, this pretty piece has taken no longer to mount, (in which every external muscle shows,) than would a blasted old capabara dry skin which at the very best could only be made passably respectable. I tell you there must be a complete revolution in the manner of preparing skins. There is where </u all > the trouble lies. The S. A. T. is going to begin at the beginning & offer a gold medal & $100. for the best treatise in any language by any body, on the preparation and preservation of skins in all climates. This proposition or rather idea, I intend to push at the next general meeting and if carried out it will certainly be of no small benefit to W. N. S. E. We hope to get the Smithsonian to back us on that undertaking. How would it do to have the prize treatise published as a Bulletin of the National Museum, provided we could get it done ?