Taxidermy: The art of stuffing a dead animal to make it look as if it is still alive.

Francis Perrier was once a soldier in the French army in the 1850s. As a young man, he had always been interested in frogs and would take long walks around the countryside looking for them. Many of us have different kinds of interests and hobbies and spend long hours watching or reading about them. Francis Perrier, however, took his own interests much further than most of us would choose to.

Whenever he saw a frog, he would try to catch it. Once caught, he would place it into his pocket and take it home. There, he would kill it, take out all its insides with a knife and replace it with sand. Even though the frogs were dead, once stuffed they looked as if they were still alive.

Francis took this act of taxidermy one stage further. Once stuffed, he would think of different situations in which he could place the frogs, before carving small pieces of furniture. He created all kinds of different scenes from everyday life: a class full of schoolchildren, a family dinner, or a lawyer sitting at his desk. You can see from the photographs that he was not only good at taxidermy, but he was also a very gifted wood carver.

You will probably agree that Francis Perrier had a very unusual hobby, but his lifelike frog collection was placed in a museum following his death. There are 108 frogs in total on display, and they can be seen today in a local history museum in one of the most beautiful villages in Switzerland called Estavayer-le-lac.

Situated just 56 kilometres from Switzerland’s capital city, Bern, the museum is home to not only Francis Perrier’s frogs but also other collections, mainly from local people. They include ancient keys, pots and pans from an old kitchen, and 200 lamps once used on the Swiss railways.

Stuffing frogs may not be everyone’s idea of a fun hobby, but the collection enjoys lots of attention from the visitors to the museum.

Question:

Believe it or not, the frog museum in Estavayer-le-lac, Switzerland, is not the only stuffed frog museum!

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