A taxidermist is the person whose job is taxidermy — preparing the skin of a dead animal, bird or fish and mounting it over a shaped form so that the animal looks alive again. Museums employ them to make the animals you see standing in glass cases; hunters and fishers pay them to preserve a catch; some work for universities preparing specimens for study. It is a real trade with real skill in it — part of the work is anatomy, part is sculpture, part is patient handwork — and a good taxidermist knows how a living animal actually holds its head, because that is what makes the difference between a convincing animal and a sad, lumpy one. The word is rare in daily conversation and you may go years without needing it, but it turns up often in museums, in nature writing, and, for some reason English cannot explain, in a great many detective stories.

動物標本剝製師（做博物館裡那種動物標本的人）