Monday 26 May 2014

All Creatures Great and Small

I visited the antiques fair at Doncaster racecourse this morning looking for Poole Pottery, but came away with this stuffed jay instead.  I'm not too sure why.
Taxidermy does seem like a macabre way to pursue a love of nature.  But this bird is as beautiful as it is unsettling.  The blue feathers have a checkerboard pattern similar to a snakeshead fritillary, the glass eye is the same forget-me-not colour blue.
The very faded label on the back of the box reads, "H. H. Kew, Hairdresser, Bird and Animal Stuffer, 5 Eastgate (near the parish church), Louth.  Every description of English and foreign, birds, fishes, and animals carefully mounted."
Google comes up with a few different H. H. Kew birds, fishes and animals, including a pair of fox heads with the date 1932.

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