Bone and Shell Exhibition

It is curious to note with what odd results of patient labour our forefathers were amused to the top of their bent. They were Curiosities in the strictest sense of the term; but as to the information conveyed by their exhibition, it was generally a lucus à non lucendo.

In Suffolk Street, Cockspur Street, an ingenious Mrs. Dards got up a display of this kind, consisting of an immense collection of artificial flowers, made entirely by herself with fish-bones, the incessant labour of many years, of which she said to Mr. J. T. Smith:—"No one can imagine the trouble I had in collecting the bones for that bunch of lilies of the valley. Each cup consists of the bones which contain the brains of the turbot; and from the difficulty of matching the sizes, I never should have completed my task had it not been for the kindness of the proprietors of the London, Freemasons', and Crown and Anchor taverns, who desired their waiters to save the fish-bones for me."

This ingenious person distributed a card embellished with flowers and insects, upon which was engraven an advertisement, stating the exhibition to be the labour of thirty years, and to contain "a great variety of beautiful objects equal to nature." Likewise enabled to gratify them.

"With bones, scales, and eyes, from the prawn to the porpoise,
Fruit, flies, birds, and flowers, oh, strange metamorphose!"