Most of the skins were eventually recovered by the police after Rist had offered many of the individual feathers for sale to fly-tyers on the internet. The bird skins came to the museum orginally as a result of decades of effort by Victorian natural history collectors, including even Alfred Russell Wallace, and the species stolen included a number which are now endangered or extinct. Rist had talked his way into the confidence of the staff and spent several months familiarising himself with the layout and organisation of the museum in order to commit his crime. His enthusiasm for his calling extended to walking out of the Tring Museum with 299 exotic bird skins in a suitcase. In 2009 Edwin Rist was a music student and exceedingly enthusiastic fly-tyer. Colour and b/w photograph plates, bibliography. (2018) 2018 Windmill Books paperback edition.
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