Taxidermy and Zoological Collecting Part 22

FIG. 55.--Medallion of Yellow Pike.

FIG. 56.--Cross-Section.

We will suppose that our fish is a fresh subject, or an entire specimen from alcohol. The first thing is to procure a pine board of proper thickness, lay the fish flat upon it, and with a pencil mark out its outline. Although only one side of the fish is to show, it is desirable to mount a little more than precisely one-half of it. Therefore, select the side to be displayed, and remove the skin from the other to within a short distance of the median line of the back and abdomen. This extra margin of skin is to give the skin an appearance of entirety and rotundity, rather than flatness such as would be the case if an exact half were represented.

The head of the fish must be sawn through with a fine saw, and, of course, the observance of the directions already given will leave the dorsal and a.n.a.l fins on the portion to be exhibited.

Having carefully skinned, cleaned, and preserved the portion to be exhibited, the centre-board is cut out with a short bevel on the inside, and on the other the full shape of one side of the fish. When this fits the skin properly, the right quant.i.ty of clay is put upon it, the skin is then put on, and fastened at the back according to circ.u.mstances. With a small fish, the edges of the skin may be sewn together from top to bottom, across the exposed surface of the centre board, but with large specimens it is best to nail the edges to the board.

MOUNTING CARTILAGINOUS FISHES: _Sharks, rays, saw-fish, etc._--The only failures I have ever made during my thirteen years of taxidermic work have been with subjects of this cla.s.s. I call them failures because, after taking infinite pains and mounting my specimens to the complete satisfaction of all concerned, the best ones, the very ones I had considered most perfect when finished, for two or three years afterward continued to shrink and shrink, until the skin burst open, and the tail and fins warped out of shape by the same process until it was maddening to look upon them.

I once spent a week of diligent labor in mounting over a clay-covered excelsior manikin the skin of a ten-and-a-half foot gray shark (_Hexanchus griseus_), which came to me in the flesh. It was a beautiful specimen, and I mounted it according to elaborate measurements, and a cast of the head.

The result was all that could be desired. Three years later that shark was a sight to behold. Around the body, just back of the gill openings, the skin had burst open in a crack an inch wide. The tail had been ripped open by the terrible strain of shrinkage, so had the seam underneath the belly, and at first the damage seemed beyond repair. We did repair it, however, very fairly, but to me the specimen has ever since been an eyesore.

By the bitterest of experiences I have learned that a shark, ray, or saw-fish is bound to keep shrinking and shrinking, in both length and circ.u.mference, from the day it is finished to the crack of doom. The fins and tail _will_ warp and twist out of shape, and I defy any man to prevent it. Since finding it impossible to mount a fish of this cla.s.s substantially, and have it retain its original size, I have adopted a plan which allows shrinkage. The rod which supports the tail is fastened to the centre-board by two staples so loosely that when the strain of shrinkage comes upon it, it will gradually slip through the staples and allow the specimen to shorten instead of bursting.

It is best not to mount a shark too well. Stuff it with soft straw instead of making a firm manikin, and do not fill the body any harder than is necessary to secure smoothness. As the specimen gets old, and its circ.u.mference grows smaller by degrees, and beautifully (?) less, the ma.s.s of straw will also shrink to accommodate the lawless tendencies of the skin.

I have successively tried the effect of curing skins of sharks in brine, in alcohol, and in the salt-and-alum bath, but the result is always the same.

It is easy enough to mount them to perfection, but to make them remain _as mounted_ for five years is beyond my powers.

The rays are the meanest of all subjects that vex the soul of the taxidermist. Shun them as you would the small-pox or the devil. Such abominable animated pancakes, with razor edges that taper out to infinite nothingness, were never made to be mounted by any process known to mortal man. To mount the skin of a vile ray, and make it really perfect and life-like is to invite infinite shrinkage, rips, tears, warps, defeat, and humiliation at the hands of your envious rivals. If you must mount a ray, by all means get square with it at the start. Stuff his miserable old skin with tow or straw, the more the better. Ram him, cram him "full to the very jaws," like the famous rattlesnake skin that taxidermist Miles Standish stuffed "with powder and bullets." If you can burst him wide open from head to tail, by all means do so, and you may call me your slave for the rest of my life. Make him nice and round, like a balloon, and then no matter what he does afterward to mortify and disgrace you, and to drag your fair standard in the dust, you will always have the satisfaction of knowing you are square with him.

Once when I was young and innocent, I encountered an enormous ray. He was not thrust upon me, for I achieved him--and my own ruin also, at one fell stroke. I mounted him willingly, nay, eagerly, as Phaeton mounted his chariot, to show the rest of the world how all rays should be done. I mounted his vast, expansive skin over a clay-covered manikin that had edges like a Damascus razor, and I made him flat. He was flat enough to navigate the Platte River at low water, which even a thick s.h.i.+ngle can not do. He was life-like, and likewise was a great triumph. But almost the moment my back was turned upon him forever, he went back on me. I had put him up to stay put, so far as my part was concerned, so he just got mad and literally tore himself to tatters. He became almost a total wreck, and to make my defeat a more genuine and unmitigated crusher, Professor Ward sent word to me, all the way to Was.h.i.+ngton, that he would sell me that large ray for $5. I never forgave him for that.

The best way to mount a ray is to make a nice plaster cast of it, paint it, and then bury the accursed ray in a compost heap. As a cla.s.s these fishes are remarkable, and highly interesting, and there is a far greater variety of them than anyone who is not an ichthyologist might suppose. To me there is no other group of fishes more interesting, and, I may add, there is no other group that is, as a general thing, so poorly represented in museum collections. They exhibit all possible intermediate forms between the ordinary shark and the perfectly round, flat ray. The intermediate forms, _Rhyn.o.batii_ and _Rhamphobatis_, are naturally the most interesting.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XV. AMERICAN LOBSTER.--SHOWING LOCATION OF WIRES.]

CHAPTER XXVII.

MOUNTING LOBSTERS AND CRABS.

The following directions were written from the mounting of a large lobster, but apply equally to all crustaceans large enough to be stuffed.

1. Remove the sh.e.l.l of the back (carapax) in one piece, by cutting under its lower edges, and with steel bone-sc.r.a.pers clean out all the flesh from the body and tail.

2. Take a long, stiff wire (about No. 10 for a lobster), flatten it out at one end, and bend up a quarter of an inch of it, to form a sc.r.a.per with a sharp chisel edge. Insert this in the legs (or "walking feet"), one by one, and clean out all the flesh they contain, quite to their tips. With a strong syringe inject water into each leg to thoroughly wash out the inside.

3. Take off the "movable claw" from the "big pincer," also make a hole in the joint at A (Plate XV.), and through these two openings remove all the flesh from the large claws, and syringe them out.

4. Having thoroughly cleaned the specimen, either soak it in some liquid poison, such as a.r.s.enic water (the easiest to prepare--by dissolving a.r.s.enic in boiling water), or a corrosive sublimate solution, or else poison it by injecting diluted a.r.s.enical soap into the legs, claws, and body with a syringe.

5. Insert in each leg and claw a soft wire of zinc, galvanized iron, or bra.s.s, and bend the end in the body at very nearly a right angle (B-B). In large specimens the wire should be wrapped smoothly with a little tow, so that the claws will not be loose upon it.

6. Insert a wire in each feeler as far up as possible, and let the lower end extend well down into the body. To hold the specimen on its pedestal, take another wire, as long as the entire specimen from head to tail, pa.s.s one end of it down through the centre of the body, bend the wire down at a right angle, and in the same manner pa.s.s the other end down through the middle abdominal segment. The ends are to pa.s.s through the pedestal and be clinched below.

7. The claws need not be stuffed.

8. When all the various members have been wired, bend all the inner ends of the wires down in the body, and pour in a lot of plaster Paris, which, as soon as it hardens will hold all the wires in place.

9. Stuff the cavity of the abdominal segments with tow, put what filling is necessary into the thorax, then put the sh.e.l.l back in its place and glue it fast all around the edges.

10. Replace the movable claws, and with glue and cotton fasten them firmly where they belong.

11. Put a wire around the end of each claw to hold it down, or, what is better still, wire it down from the under side in such a way that the wire will not be visible.

12. When the specimen is dry and its colors have partly faded out, procure a fresh specimen of the same species, and with your oil colors paint the sh.e.l.l carefully and artistically from your model. Learn to _blend_ the colors together as nature does in such objects, softening all the lines.

When the paint is dry, if the specimen has a dead, opaque appearance, give its surface both l.u.s.tre and transparency by applying a thin coat of white varnish and turpentine.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

ORNAMENTAL TAXIDERMY.

Until within a very few years, the taxidermist produced but little purely ornamental work, and the most of that little was rather crude and unattractive. Now, however, decorative pieces are produced in bewildering variety, and many of them are justly regarded as works of art. The productions of the Society of American Taxidermists are now to be seen in thousands of the finest homes in the United States, and in art galleries, both public and private. In all the exhibitions of the Society, the display of "Articles for Ornament or Use" has always been the most attractive feature, and the one which has elicted from visitors the most surprise, admiration, and hard cash. The beautiful exhibits made by Messrs.

F.S. Webster and F.A. Lucas, of Was.h.i.+ngton; Thomas W. Fraine and W.J.

Critchley, of Rochester, N.Y.; Mr. and Mrs. George H. Hedley, of Medina, N.Y.; Mr. John Wallace, of New York; David Bruce, of Brockport, N.Y.; and Messrs. F.T. Jencks, and Aldrich & Capen, of Boston, will certainly never be forgotten by those who saw them.

It is impossible to describe here the precise methods by which the various kinds of decorative objects may be produced, and surely in the light of all the methods and details that have already been given, it is unnecessary. It will be sufficient to describe by word and picture the character of the various cla.s.ses of objects, and leave their production to be worked out according to the principles already laid down. The accompanying plate represents a carefully selected group of decorative objects which were displayed in the New York exhibition of the Society of American Taxidermists, and were afterward presented by their respective owners to the National Museum at Was.h.i.+ngton, where they are now displayed in the Society's exhibit.

WALL CASES.--The shallow box case with gla.s.s front, sheltering one specimen or a group, and garnished with certain accessories, is one of the most popular and pleasing of all pieces of decorative taxidermy. Its evolution is due directly to the desire to protect from destruction the more cherished of the single specimens that first began to grace the homes of the lovers of animated nature. In American homes there are to-day thousands of pretty wall-cases of choice birds mounted with suitable accessories, either natural or artificial, many with painted backgrounds, and an equal number without. There are also hundreds of cases of small mammals mounted in the same way.

_Artificial Leaves._--The accessories most available are gra.s.ses and ferns carefully pressed, dried, and painted green, and set in the foundation work. Natural moss is used in the same way, and for bushes with foliage, artificial leaves are easily procured and wired on to the twigs of the branch that has been selected for use. These can be procured of any first-cla.s.s dealer in taxidermists' supplies, or at large artificial flower establishments. If leaves of some special kind are desired, or leaves in great quant.i.ty, it will be best to procure them direct of C.

Pelletier, 135 Wooster Street, New York City, who has supplied me for eight years. The cost of leaves varies from 25 cents to $2.00 per gross; and for some kinds even more.

_Water and Ice._--To represent water, use a sheet of clear gla.s.s, and build up underneath it a bottom of sand, or gravel, or weeds, as may be necessary. Ice is easily counterfeited by coating a sheet of gla.s.s or wood with paraffin, which is quite white, and sufficiently transparent to give the proper effect. Icicles are manufactured by Demuth Brothers, 89 Walker Street, New York, especially for taxidermists, at very moderate prices, and are infinitely better than anything the taxidermist can produce. They are fastened to the sides of snow-covered rocks, or wherever they belong, by setting them at the base in stiff papier-mache with sinew glue.

_Snow_ is made by flowing plaster Paris over the surface to be covered, and dressing its surface at once; and then, before it becomes quite hard, sprinkling its surface with painter's frosting, which is exceedingly thin flakes of clear gla.s.s, and must be ground up in a mortar to get it fine enough to use. If ground too finely, it becomes a dull white powder, like marble dust, and is useless. In order to give a glistening appearance to the surface the particles must be large enough to reflect light. Mica is of no use for this purpose. In making the snow that covers the ground underneath the group of musk ox in the National Museum, Mr. Joseph Palmer invented a compound composed of the pulp of white blotting-paper, starch, and plaster Paris, which made a white, fluffy-looking ma.s.s that could be sprinkled over the ground by hand, and closely resembles a light fall of snow.

For the preparation of boughs of evergreens for use in groups, so that the needles will not fall off the twigs, Mr. Jenness Richardson, taxidermist to the American Museum of Natural History, in New York, has, by long and patient experimenting, evolved a solution in which he actually effects the complete preservation of coniferous foliage. When the branches to be used have been put through this liquid and dried, they are afterward painted, and are really as perfect as when living on the parent stem. Mr. Richardson has kindly put me in possession of the knowledge of his entire process, but I am not at liberty to publish it at present.

_Painted Backgrounds._--The beauty of a wall-case, or indeed of any group in a flat case, is greatly enhanced by the addition of a painted background of the proper character to represent the home surroundings of the living creatures in front of it. Of course the back must seem to be a harmonious continuation of the bottom, where the real objects are. The tints of the picture should be very quiet, and by no means gaudy or striking, and should not attract attention away from the zoological specimens. The objects to be gained in a painted background are distance, airiness, and, above all, a knowledge of the country inhabited by the bird or mammal. As an example of the value of a painted background in the production of a pleasing effect, the reader is respectfully referred to a group the writer produced nine years ago, ent.i.tled "Coming to the Point," and now in the National Museum (see Fig. 1, Plate XVI.). It is not boasting to say that that simple group, composed of a white setter dog, six partridges, a bush full of autumn-tinted leaves, and a really handsome painted background (by Mary E.W. Jeffrey) has given more pleasure than anything else the writer ever produced. The case is only ten inches deep, but the apparent distance is about a mile, and the autumn scene is very acceptable to the public, sportsmen especially.

As yet the museums will have no painted backgrounds. Ten years ago they would have no groups, and no birds with painted legs and beaks. They have all come to the two latter, and they will all come to painted backgrounds also, in due time, and it will be a good thing for them when they do. If I am ever at the head of a museum, it shall have groups with painted backgrounds galore, and there will be imitators thereof in plenty. There is in this direction a vast field which has hardly been touched, and when it is once developed the world will be the gainer. Museum managers the world over are too conservative by half. Some of them will get out of the ruts they are in by following others; some will not get out until they are dragged out, and a few others will never get out at all.

Twenty-five years hence the zoological museums of this country will be as attractive and pleasing as the picture galleries, and they will teach ten times as many object-lessons as they do now. To-day the average museum is as lifeless as a dictionary; but the museum of the future will be life itself.

In Plate XVI. are shown three other examples of wall-cases, of different kinds. Fig. 10 is a group of humming-birds, with choice accessories, under a hemispherical gla.s.s shade, surrounded by a black velvet mat, and set in a rich gold frame. This exceedingly artistic arrangement is designed either to stand on an easel or hang on the wall, and is the work of Mr. and Mrs. George H. Hedley. No. 11 represents a group of gray squirrels in a rustic case made of papier-mache, with gla.s.s front, top, and sides, and natural accessories, the work of Mr. Joseph Palmer, of the National Museum. No. 12 represents a group of south southerly ducks at the edge of a marsh, in a square case with closed back, and painted background. This was prepared by Mr. William Palmer. In Fig. 57 appears a representation of a very pretty wall-case, by Mr. F.A. Lucas. This was one of a series of four companion cases representing the four seasons, and it is only the very unscientific who need to be informed that the blue-birds building their nest are meant to represent "Spring."