The E.W. Darbey Taxidermy Shop and the Making of the Manitoba Museum

Taxidermy storefronts, like that of E.W. Darbey on Main Street in 1911, were stuffed with unusual animals and birds (note the seals and walrus, far right), beckoning casual visitors as well as buying customers. Detail, L.B. Foote Collection N1660, Archives of Manitoba.

The Manitoba Museum recently opened a “new” store in the Winnipeg 1920 Gallery, the Darbey taxidermy shop. Today, a taxidermy shop would be considered a minor player in our digital world of cell phones, apps, and AI. But from 1880 into the 1920s, taxidermy was an important element of Manitoba society. Many homes, particularly wealthy ones, displayed hunting trophies and stuffed birds. These functioned as conversation pieces and expressions of social status. Public spaces were adorned with game heads as symbols of the province’s natural riches. Government-sponsored travelling exhibitions used taxidermy to promote Manitoba as overflowing with resources awaiting exploitation and profit. The aim was to attract businesses and immigrants from other parts of Canada and from around the world.

It was page-one news in the (then) Manitoba Free Press, albeit accompanied by sarcastic humour, when Winnipeg’s first taxidermist, George Nagy, arrived on the scene in August of 1879:

Nagy did not advertise as a taxidermist, but as a furrier who also “stuffed” moose and deer heads, and birds. Nagy was soon replaced by those specializing in taxidermy, with the first listing of “Taxidermists” in the classifieds of the 1882 Henderson Directory naming the Hine family – father Abel and son William – under that category. They were later joined by Abel’s younger sons Calvin and Ashley.  This family received acclaim in England and across North America for their work, with Ashley becoming a noted bird taxidermist for Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History in the 1920s and 30s.

Competition from additional taxidermists began in earnest between 1890 and 1900 with the arrival of George Grieve, Alexander Calder, Edmund Wilson and his sons, William White, and smaller operators. There was substantial cross-pollination of talent; the hired help, or the main players themselves, often moved between establishments. For example, Calvin Hine worked variously with his father and brother, with Grieve, with White, and also independently. One of White’s employees, Edward Darbey, was able to learn taxidermy and marketing from some of the best, and he used that experience to full advantage.

Edward Wade Darbey was born in 1872 in southern Ontario and arrived in Winnipeg with his parents in 1887. By 1892, he had become an apprentice and clerk to William Fenwick White, a well-known taxidermist and “curio” dealer on Main Street. The early 1900s saw significant upheaval on the Winnipeg taxidermy scene. The untimely deaths of long-time taxidermists George Grieve (in 1901, age 49) and William White (in 1905, age 45), along with members of the Hine family leaving Winnipeg for England, Alberta, or British Columbia, created a void – and opportunity. Edward Darbey took the taxidermied bison by the horns, as it were, and purchased Grieve’s established business. Darbey’s skill, business acumen, and ambition had him named as Manitoba’s official taxidermist, a unique position he held until his death in 1922. Darbey’s wife was equally ambitious and managed the business, using Darbey’s name and title as advertising, for several years after his passing.

Until 1932, there was no provincial museum in Manitoba. Before then, taxidermy and “curio” shops assumed that role. These were filled with an intriguing assortment of mounted birds and mammals. Some also carried an array of beautiful Indigenous beadwork, leatherwork, and archaeological items. They attracted not only buying customers, but interested visitors as well. And, as noted, there were several competing taxidermy shops to browse. One proprietor, William Fenwick White (where Darbey got his start), even advertised his shop as “White’s Free Museum.” Taxidermists were also sought for their knowledge on animal behaviour, distribution, and, paradoxically, conservation.

Winnipeg newspaper advertisements posted at the turn of the 20^th century by William Fenwick White for his “Free Museum” of taxidermy, including two-headed calves along with more traditional mounts.  First Nations beadwork and clothing was also featured. From left to right: Winnipeg Tribune, Sept 1, 1893; Winnipeg Free Press, Dec 12, 1894 and Dec 21, 1901.

A beautiful Darbey mount of a western grebe (Aechmophorus occidentalis) – circled in yellow on the left and as a closeup on the right – currently seen in the Whitewater Lake exhibit in the Prairies Gallery. Even after more than 100 years, Darbey’s work continues to have purpose and educate. © Ian McCausland, Manitoba Museum

We invite you to visit Darbey’s taxidermy shop reproduced in the Winnipeg 1920 Gallery and explore its amazing contents through the window it provides into the Winnipeg of over 100 years ago. And you can see some of Darbey’s original work in the Prairies Gallery, still drawing the eyes of intrigued visitors.

As you trek across the snowy landscape in a (typical) Manitoba winter, one of the last creatures you might expect to be sharing the trail with is an insect. One of the reasons you are in the woods during this season might be to avoid insects! But as the temperatures hover around the freezing mark, keep your eyes open and you might be lucky enough to see a snow fly walking alongside you. Snow flies (genus Chionea) are harmless and flightless species of crane fly (family Tipulidae) (Fig. 1). Crane flies are more likely recognized as the long-legged, skinny flies that are often mistaken to be giant mosquitoes (but don’t feed as adults or only sip nectar) (Fig. 2).

Snow flies are highly specialized, as you might expect given they are active in winter rather than in summer as other crane flies. Their odd habits have made them difficult to study; much less is known about the lives of snow flies compared to their relatives. They are usually found under the snow in what is called the subnivean zone, the space between the snow pack and the ground (Fig. 3). Here, there is an insulated layer with stable temperatures just below or near the freezing mark that harbours an entire community of lichens, mosses and other plants, mice, voles, shrews, and many invertebrates. Snow flies live in the decaying, woody debris of the forest floor under this snowy blanket. Eggs are laid in winter and the larvae are thought to feed on plant debris or, perhaps, are coprophagous – that is, they might eat mouse or vole poop (yum!). They pupate in late summer or fall and emerge as adults in winter, under the snow. The adults, like most other crane flies, are not known to feed, although they do sip water and readily drink maple syrup when offered in lab conditions.

Figure 3: A cutaway view of a layer of snow and the forest floor to show the subnivean zone, the space between the snow and the ground that provides a stable and relatively warm environment for small mammals, invertebrates, and plants to survive the winter. This is a mini-diorama in the Arctic/Sub-Arctic Gallery of the Manitoba Museum.

Warm-weather crane flies live for only a few days, just long enough to find a mate and have females lay eggs. Snow flies are known to live for as long as two months, perhaps tied to a slower metabolism in a colder environment, but also perhaps a specialization that provides time to wait for favourable conditions to permit emergence from beneath the snow. When daytime highs go above -2°C, they go walkabout for tens of metres, perhaps farther, to find a mate (Fig. 4).

Figure 4: A female (left) and male (right) snow fly (Chionea valga) walking over snow one January, searching for each other along a trail in Pinawa, Manitoba (© P. Taylor, used with permission).

Many insects avoid freezing over winter by producing sugars and proteins in their body fluids to create an ‘anti-freeze’; they can lower their internal freezing temperature by keeping ice crystals from forming as early as they would ordinarily. Many freeze-tolerant insects can survive temperatures well below -25°C. Surprisingly, snow flies aren’t particularly good at producing antifreeze nor are they very freeze tolerant; they freeze (and die) at body temperatures below about -6°C.  This means that they are restricted to the (relatively) warm subnivean world most of the winter, and explains why their mate-searching activities are limited to warmer days (as noted, about -2°C or higher). One of the snow fly’s more important adaptations is that they appear to have modified nerve and muscle function to operate at low temperatures. They can remain active to the point of freezing! This means, that on a sunny day when the dark body can absorb solar heat and remain above air temperature, a snow fly can be actively walking at -10°C (Fig. 7).

Figure 7: A female snow fly (Chionea valga) actively walking on the snow near Pinawa, Manitoba on January 27, 2015. © P. Taylor, used with permission.

A more astounding adaptation: it has recently been discovered that a snow fly can self-amputate its legs to keep a freezing limb from transferring killing ice crystals into its body and destroying critical internal organs. Many insects, and especially summer crane flies, lose their long, spindly legs quite easily if held; mechanical amputation of a leg can help to escape a predator. But the larger, more substantial legs of snow flies do not come off by pulling; rather, they are triggered to amputate by temperature-regulated nerves so that when a freezing leg is detected, amputation occurs. When air temperatures drop quickly, this can buy a little more time for a snow fly out on the surface, allowing it to seek shelter under the snow and avoid a frosty death.

You can learn more about amazing snow flies in the articles listed below; both provide excellent summaries on these surprising winter insects. You can explore the life of insects throughout the year and discover their incredible diversity in the Museum’s Boreal Gallery and Prairies Gallery, where you can get up-close and personal with hundreds of species, beautiful and bizarre.

Taylor, Peter. 2016. Snow flies and other winter invertebrates near Pinawa, Manitoba. Blue Jay 74(2): 18-22. https://bluejayjournal.ca/index.php/bluejay/article/view/6112/6101

Golding, D., Rupp, K., Sustar, N., Pratt, B. and Tuthill, J. 2023. Snow flies self-amputate freezing to sustain behavior at sub-zero temperatures. Current Biology 33: 1-8. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.09.002

Chickadees have several adaptations to fend off winter’s worst. Feathers, as some of us know from our down-filled parkas, are extraordinarily good insulation. But all adult birds have feathers, and most migrate south for winter. So what else do chickadees do?

Well, our chickadees are likely to be extra buff in winter! Relatives of Manitoban chickadees have been shown to have chest muscles up to 30% larger in winter than in summer. Chickadees spend little time in continuous flight in their daily activities, so why would these flight muscles get bigger in winter? These larger chest muscles are vital sources of heat production. Chickadees use bursts of shivering to create heat and these muscles do that work, as well as power flight.

Chickadees are also big energy-savers. Like some of us that turn the house thermostat down at night to save energy while we are asleep, chickadees also turn down their thermostats at night using what is called nocturnal hypothermia. Chickadees reduce their body temperatures by as much as 10°C and this can provide a 50% energy savings overnight! One study showed that even reducing body temperature by only 8°C can increase the time to when a chickadee needs to eat to re-fuel by well over an hour. This extra time could spell the difference between overnight survival and death.

Finding a warm roosting spot to stay overnight is also important. Hunkering down in a tree cavity provides a microclimate where heat loss is minimized. Tree cavities can provide an effective temperature difference almost 15°C higher than at an exposed site. This can mean an additional 35% energy saving and greatly increase fasting endurance, the time between required feedings, by seven hours! On very cold days, chickadees spend almost ¾ of their time at their roosting site. This explains why our backyard feeders, just when you might think they would be busiest, seem mysteriously chickadee-free on very cold, windy days.

But when chickadees wake up in the morning and do need to feed, what are they eating and where are they finding it? In summer, chickadees eat mostly insects but in winter, when it is more difficult to find overwintering insect eggs, larvae, and adults, about half of their diet is seeds and berries. Chickadees are opportunistic and readily visit feeders. But they are not reliant on feeders to get through the winter, in part because they store food!

Chickadees are famous for taking seeds and berries and caching them in a hiding spot, and rarely in the same place. This reduces the risk of losing access to food in the future.  On a tough winter day there is a store of available food. And having many, separate places protects this important food source; if all the seeds are hidden at the same spot, perhaps a squirrel, mouse, or other bird might discover them and have a feast, or poor weather might destroy the cache. Having hundreds of individual, safer hiding spots does create a different problem, however. The chickadee needs to remember where to find them all again. Research has shown that chickadees are up to the task, able to recall the locations of hundreds, even thousands, of stored seeds – for up to a month!

Chickadees quickly learn to take seeds from patient humans. Will this chickadee eat the seed right away or will it store it to relocate later in the winter when food is scarce? (Images ©Peter Taylor)

Chickadees that rely on stored food have a relatively enlarged part of the brain, the hippocampus, that is important for spatial memory. Although some research initially suggested that the hippocampus increases in size in the fall, potentially to accommodate these memories, more recent work is inconclusive. However, it is no less spectacular that chickadees in harsher northern climates, that would be expected to have a heavier reliance on stored seeds, have a larger hippocampus with more and larger neurons than do chickadees in southern populations. This does suggest that natural selection in a harsher climate has favoured individuals with heritable traits that increase spatial memory.

The next time you see a black-capped chickadee flitting about on a frigid day, perhaps consider all that is going on inside that tiny ball of fluff to get it through the winter. Chickadees do make even our coldest winters cheerier, but there is a lot of serious work going on under that black cap.

If you can’t find a chickadee outside, you can see them in the Boreal Forest and Parklands galleries in the Manitoba Museum. And you can learn about winter adaptations of many kinds of animals throughout the galleries.

[For further, more detailed summaries of chickadee winter biology, see: Pravasudov, V.V. et al. (2015) Environmental influences on spatial memory and the hippocampus in food-caching chickadees.  Comparative Cognition & Behavior Reviews, 10, 25–43.; Olsen, J.R. (2009) Metabolic performance and distribution in black-capped (Poecile atricapillus) and Carolina chickadees (P. carolinensis). PhD Dissertation, The Ohio State University.]

The Museum opened our newly renovated Prairies Gallery just last spring with spectacular new exhibits on the intriguing and engaging natural and human history of southern Manitoba. The addition of ground squirrels and their burrows, a riverbank bison bone bed, a homesteader stone house, an old school room, and hundreds of new specimens and artifacts, along with life-sized animations, prairie soundscapes, and feature videos provide exciting immersive experiences.

But some things from the old ‘Grasslands Gallery’ didn’t need changing, only a facelift. The pronghorn diorama at the gallery’s entrance remains as awesome and as valuable an educational tool as it did when it opened over 50 years ago in the summer of 1970, when it caught the eye of our first official visitors, Prince Philip and Queen Elizabeth:

The diorama was designed, its backdrop painted, and installation overseen by renowned Manitoba artist Clarence Tillenius. He began planning in August 1968 and completed it, along with the bison diorama (much longer in production, from 1963), in June of 1970. As has remained the tradition for our dioramas to ensure authenticity, Tillenius visited the site that is portrayed, driving with other Museum personnel north of the U.S. border “to a point south of Waskada from where I [Tillenius] painted a study of the west end of the Turtle Mountains [sic] which appear in the background landscape.” (From a June 12 1970 letter to Dr. F.A.L. Matheson, then-president of the Museum.)

A rough plan for the diorama as envisaged by Tillenius. The basic size and shape was maintained, but only two actual pronghorn, a male and female, were in the final exhibit with a herd painted into the backdrop.

Hallowe’en is upon us and all the traditional ghosts, goblins, witches, and bats are making their annual appearance. The Museum just hosted a very successful members’ night that included trick-or-treating for kids. But a recent (unfortunate) offer of a real bat to our Zoology collections has me thinking that we need to re-evaluate the inclusion of bats as a Hallowe’en symbol – they just don’t belong at this time of year!

Manitoba has six species of bats. Half of these are “cave bats” as shown in the image below to the left. Over the winter, most of the individuals of these species likely stay inside the province or in nearby provinces or states by hibernating in caves. Big brown bats occasionally find shelter in buildings. The caves are cool, but do not freeze and offer stable temperatures and humidity that are good for hibernation.

The other three species are the “tree bats” that are illustrated in the image below to the right; the red bat is a particularly attractive species (although for many, “attractive bat” is likely considered an oxymoron!). The “tree bats” escape our winters by migrating out of the province in late summer and fall, likely to the southern United States, and return each spring.

The other three species are the “tree bats” that are illustrated in the image above; the red bat is a particularly attractive species (although for many, “attractive bat” is likely considered an oxymoron!). The “tree bats” escape our winters by migrating out of the province in late summer and fall, likely to the southern United States, and return each spring.

But just as with us when we wait too long to put on the snow tires, bats sometimes get caught by cold weather. That is what happened to an unfortunate silver-haired bat just last week (October 23) that was found lying dead on a Winnipeg sidewalk. Despite attempts at warming the little guy, it did not revive and was offered to be a part of the research collection here at the Museum. Such donations provide the raw materials to help understand these (and other) little-known animals. The Museum is grateful for these donations, and in some ways, gives the organism a second “life” where it can be studied and be used for exhibits and other educational purposes.

The silver-haired bat is likely the commonest tree bat in Manitoba (and North America), but despite this we know surprisingly little about it. They are long-distance migrants, probably spending the winter in the southern U.S. and returning to Manitoba certainly by May – we have found them clinging to the Museum on occasion as they are on their way to northern forests. These are spectacular trips for animals that weight the equivalent of $2 in loonies! [That’s about 12 g.] In summer, the species is found in north temperate zone conifer and mixed conifer/hardwood forest feeding mostly on soft-bodied insects, particularly moths, but also midges and mosquitoes. Females form small, communal maternity roosts in tree hollows or under bark. In August and September they migrate back south to avoid our cold weather and lack of insects.

Knowing that Hallowe’en frequently seems like the coldest day of fall – it always seemed so to me as a parent taking kids around the neighbourhood! – all of our bats should either have found safe hibernation sites or have moved south by now. Most silver-haired bats should have left at least a month ago (end of  September), long before our local ghosts, goblins, and witches start wondering our streets. And given that October weather is so hard on these little mammals, with the recent offering to the Museum collection as clear evidence, Hallowe’en and bats just don’t mix.

In Manitoba, Hallowe’en is a far scarier time for bats than it is for any of our trick-or-treaters.

[Note: This blog contains descriptions and images that may not be suitable for sensitive individuals.] 

So imagine my surprise in mid-December when a report of an expired (and frozen) barn owl from a farm near Elie, Manitoba arrived in my e-mail inbox from Manitobabirds (a birding listserve)! The importance of the find was not lost on its discoverer, Mr. Dick Steppler, so he collected the bird and brought it to Jim Duncan of Manitoba Conservation. Jim has been banding and studying various owl species, particularly great gray and hawk owls for, well, probably longer than he’d care to admit, and has published several books and lectured extensively on these species. So Jim was the logical choice to notify about the barn owl, and, fortunately for the Museum, he has always been a great supporter of our collections, recognizing their value as both a repository and as a research tool. Our bird collection would soon contain Manitoba’s first record of barn owl for this century and the first in over 18 years!

But before it came to the Museum, it was off to Dr. Terry Galloway of the Entomology Department of the University of Manitoba. Among his many areas of expertise, Terry is an authority on external bird parasites, and because finding barn owls is so unusual, it was important to try to get as much information as possible from the specimen. Despite his careful inspection, this owl seemed free of external parasites.

I went to pick up the bird from his office and brought it back to the Museum. Under my and (mostly) Janis Klapecki’s guidance (our Collections Specialist), the bird would be prepared as a study skin by Laurel McDonald. Laurel is a wonderfully skilled volunteer who has been processing bird specimens for us over the last few years. Preparing a study skin is different from taxidermy, although it uses some of the same techniques; it is the finished product that is different. With the number of bird specimens we hold (over 6300), it would be far too time consuming and take too much storage space to create taxidermy mounts for each one.

The barn owl was found frozen, but had been thawed a couple of times, once by Mr. Steppler to clean and reposition the bird, and another time by Terry in order to wash it for external parasites. Because there was no certainty as to when the owl had expired, we had no idea of what condition it would be in or whether it could even be made into specimen. If it had been outside a long time, it could either have decomposed substantially or it might have “freeze-dried.” In either case, there would be little we could do but make a skeleton.

To our surprise, the owl was in quite good condition (for a dead bird!), meaning it probably had not been long on the ground before it was found, but just long enough to freeze. To make the study skin, the bird is thawed, an incision is made along the belly, and the skin is peeled back from the body and over the head to be turned inside out. The body, including skeleton is removed with only the lower leg bones, some wing bones and the skull remaining with the skin. The skin is then turned right-side-out, stuffed with cotton and stiffened with a wooden rod to be arranged to lie flat on its back. The vital organs are examined for internal parasites (we found none), checked for general condition, stomach contents examined (although this specimen had none), and the sex organs are checked to determine gender and measured to assess condition. We saved some tissue for future DNA work, in case that is required, and the bones not left with the skin will be cleaned by dissection and in the “bug tank”, a special sealed treatment area that houses beetle larvae that will eat the flesh off the bones to make a clean skeleton.

Barn owls, like many birds, are difficult to sex externally with any confidence. Because this bird was quite buffy with relatively large spots on its breast, we were pretty sure it was a female, but couldn’t be positive. In most birds of prey the females are larger than males. In barn owls, females are bigger on average, but there is considerable overlap in measurements between the sexes. Dissection conclusively determined that this owl was a female. Plumage also suggested that it was a hatch year bird, meaning that it was under one year of age when it died. Although the bird was very emaciated (it had no fat at all), it seemed otherwise in pretty good shape and likely died of starvation. There was some indication of trauma and bruising on the lower right leg, but the bone didn’t appear to be broken, so it didn’t seem enough to explain its death.  There were two holes in the skin of the right wing that we initially thought might be due to decomposition after death, but because the rest of the bird seemed in good shape, these might have been indicative of injury – although there was no evidence of bleeding so these are likely to be postmortem. The exact cause of death will remain unknown.

Stay on the lookout for the unusual any time you are outside. You never know what exciting contributions you might make to our province’s natural history. A special thanks to the sharp-eyed Elie resident, Dick Steppler, who recognized the value of his discovery. Generations of researchers can now benefit from his thoughtful addition to the Museum collections.