SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 387 



perch you desire, from a museum T to the limb of a ni^'i'd old pine with the coues 

 and spmes on. 



Right here, however. I desire to mention a process, no doubt already known to 

 many, for which there is no end of use. Saj you have obtained a fine, intensified 

 negative, the subject being a bird caught in the act of some habit peculiar to it. You 

 wish to- obtain a good, strong, accurate outline figure of it, from which an electro- 

 t ype can at once be made, to serve as an illustration for some article upon which you 

 may be engaged. Make a print from the plate upon plain, uonalbuminized, sensi- 

 tized paper. Remove the print to the dark-room and wash out the silver from it 

 thoroughly. You may tone, but it is not absolutely necessary unless there is very 

 considerable detail in your figure. Dry the print in the dark, and keep in a 

 perfectly dark place until evening. When evening comes complete your work 

 under a good lamp where the direct rays do not fall upon your print. Pin this lat- 

 ter out on a small drawing-board with artists' thumb tacks, and then with a map- 

 ping-pen (No. 291, (iillott's) and Higgins' American drawing ink carefully ink over 

 by lines and otherwise the outlines of your figure. In doing this you will have the 

 opportunity of making it appear just as you desire your outline ink sketch to appear 

 when it comes to be finally printed from the electrotype. Having carefully com- 

 pleted your work, immerse the print flat in a tray containing a saturated solution of 

 bichloride of mercury. This in a moment takes out all of the print except the ink 

 outline you have traced, and this latter it leaves upon a pure white sheet of paper. 

 Next dry the print thoroughly and mount upon a suitable card. At a small cost, a 

 good electrotype can be made from this figure. Photographing against a sheet, of 

 course, takes out a great deal that you do not want in your reproduced figure, but 

 by the process just described you need not have a single point or line more than you 

 want. It works admirably where we wish to reduce the subject to any required 

 size; in osteological subjects and in dissections; in deformities of birds; and indeed 

 in dozens of other cases. To naturalists in general I would say that the process just 

 described is absolutely invaluable ; by its means ready and accurate sketches are 

 made of characters of country; of all sorts of ethnological subjects, as pottery and 

 native arts, sometimes so difficult to draw; of complicated skeletons; of living ani- 

 mals of all kinds, and thousands of other subjects too numerous for enumeration. 



With some live birds the following plan will be found to work well: Suspend a 

 shelf, at the proper height, from the wall of your studio and in the proper light. 

 This shelf, as usual, is to be entirely covered with white blotting paper, and upon 

 its horizontal part is to be firmly fixed the limb, trunk, or rock, or turf upon which 

 you desire your specimen to appear. Set up your camera and focus this perch 

 sharply on your ground-glass; next put in your smallest diaphragm and attach your 

 •' pneumatic shutter" ready for instant use. Gently take your living bird in your 

 hand, smooth its feathers, caress it for a moment or two, then quietly place its head 

 under its wing, and by beginning slowly soon rapidly whirl your specimen in a cir- 

 cle. This, as it were, "put it asleep," but it will seize the perch with its feet, or rest 

 quietly on rock or turf. Place it as near as possible in the position you desire, and 

 stand ready for a semi-instantaneous picture. Be perfectly quiet. In a few moments 

 your bird gradually comes to, rights himself, preens up a little, looks around, steadies 

 himself udo a natural attitude, finally looks himself, and then more or less animated, 

 fins is your chance, puff the snap on him ! 



Upon reading this over I find few, if any, alterations to make, and 

 since it was written I have succeeded in obtaining- not a few good fig- 

 ures according to its directions, some of which are republished as illus- 

 trations in the present paper and will be described a little later. 

 There is one thing, however, that needs notice, and in order to get a 

 good electrotype or stereotype, it is not necessary to proceed ;is above 



