This chapter discusses the production of knowledge about birds from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century and the fundamental connection with early forms of the preservation of dead animal bodies in the example of traveler and naturalist Pierre Belon’s treatise on birds L’Histoire de la nature des oyseaux (1555) as well as other sources. By examining the conservation practices of dead birds, as described by Belon and comparing it with other methods as well as with pictorial and textual material, the paper provides new insights into the practice of naturalists of the early modern era—including Conrad Gessner and René-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur. It also addresses the production of images that were intended to convey knowledge about these animals. The aim is to show that the early forms of dried and stuffed animal specimens—in the sense of ‘facsimile duplicates’, highly manipulated by humans—exerted an influence on the wider visual culture, whereby the aesthetics of the objects, a prominent feature in contemporary museum showcases, were then decidedly less important while other factors determined the practice of preserving dead animals.