The Passenger Pigeon at the Skinner Museum

In 2008, Boston-based photographer Rosamond Wolff Purcell made a series of images of natural history specimens at the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology in California. In the newest installment of the mhcameo series Objects of Our Affection, Professor of English Elizabeth Young discusses one photograph from that series, Purcell's beautiful, beguiling Passenger Pigeon. Young describes her recent immersion in the mysterious world of taxidermy, and recounts the fascinating history of the now-extinct passenger pigeon.