Akerley.www.Historical-Taxidermy.com

Interesting article published by "The Times" recounting an expidition by a Victorian Taxidermist C.E.Akerley
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“Kneeling on the leopard’s stomach and holding the forelegs apart with his elbows, the gasping taxidermist loosened his grip on the animal’s throat for a short breathing-spell. Almost immediately, he marked a flash of new light in the glaring golden eyes, and the battle went on as before, man against beast, brain and muscle against brute force.” Thus did C. E. Akerley, an unarmed taxidermist on a zoological expedition to British Somaliland in 1898, beat the stuffing out of a ferocious African leopard. Akerley had been bitten and clawed to shreds before he finally succeeded in throttling the enraged carnivore. “The big cat’s body grew limp, and for the first time in history one of great jungle felines succumbed in fair fight to a weaponless man.” Akerley was photographed, his arms in bandages, standing alongside the strangled leopard; he eyes his former adversary with deep suspicion, as if the animal might yet return to life, and bite his head off.
Akerley’s historic bout with the Somali leopard is just one of many similar accounts of male bravado that appeared in the pages of The Wide World, a magazine of true adventures for men, which flourished between 1898 and 1965.

www.Historical-taxidermy.com