The American Museum with new cases and improved exhibits.82 One who attended the American Museum's opening in these stylish quarters assured the readers of the Commercial Advertiser on July 3, 1817, that, in the quality of its displays and in the picturesqueness of their arrangement, it was unrivalled in the country and worthy of comparison with the best to be seen abroad. The Stranger's Guide for that year88 described the arrangement of Scudder's 94- by 41-foot second-story showroom. At the far end from the entrance he had set up a broad forest scene, realistically inhabited by eighty animals, snakes, and birds. The center of the room was occupied by a display of more than six hundred varieties of natural history specimens, in 164 glass cases. A gallery provided for separate showing of minerals, ancient coins, and thousands of unusual shells and butterflies.84 So situated—with his museum accepted as an important part of The New York Institution—Scudder could afford to hire occasional musicians, or to buy out a rent-paying rival.85 His establishment became widely known and an entertainment "must" during New York celebrations and holidays. When John Pintard walked out in the evening of July Fourth, 1819, to see the colorful American Museum illuminations, he found all the Park, around it thronged with sightseers. Inside Scudder's big showroom, "the crowd was so great, and the heat so insufferable, that no gratification could arise from viewing his elegant preparations. The music was very fine, & the Spectators outside had the best of the bargain."8" Two years more of this sort of crowded excitement, plus overwork and constant contact with the poisonous chemicals of taxidermy, brought Scudder to an untimely end on August 7, 1821, 82 Letters from John Pintard to His Daughter (4 vols.; The New-York Historical Society, 1940-1941), I, 60-61. 88 Pages 102-3. 84 The New-York Historical Society has a condensed list of Scudder exhibits, as" of July 1, 1819, printed on a broadsheet. 36 Communication from Real American in Columbian Centinel, August 12, 1820. 86 Letters from John Pintard, I, 203. 280