216 TAXIDERMY AND ZOOLOGICAL COLLECTING. 



mous 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 shingle 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 Wash- 

 ington, 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 class 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, Rhynobatii and Rliamphobatis, are 

 naturally the most interesting. 



