390 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1892. 



models after the drawings of various artists which will be hereinafter 

 mentioned. After a model has been made, a mold is next taken, and 

 from it a gelatine east is seemed which later is finally trimmed to life, 

 and faithfully colored to nature. Mr. .1. W. Scollick is responsible for 

 the delicate manipulation required in securing accurate molds and 

 castings from the models, and then they once more pass to. Mr. Bald- 

 win's hands to be colored. After this operation and when perfectly dry, 

 they may either be tastefully mounted upon properly tinted pieces of 

 small boards of a suitable kind of wood, dressed down to a right thick- 

 ness, or they may play their part in a group, wherein all the natural 

 surroundings of such creatures are reproduced, save the element in 

 which they exist. This specimen of Octopus vulgaris was based on the 

 figure given by Yerany, as was also the models of. Sepia officinalis, 

 shown in Plate xvr and in one of Histioteuthis bonelliana, shown in 

 Plate xvii, and so may be relied upon as being more or less true to 

 nature. 



Uidess one has seen one of these finished gelatine casts of such an 

 animal as an Octopus, it is hard to realize what a perfect represen- 

 tation it gives us of the living animal; and, the cast being perfectly 

 pliable, much as is the best of good rubber, it still further enhances 

 the resemblance to the original. But to produce this, requires skill 

 and art of a very high order at nearly every step of the process. In 

 the first place, if we are to model from a drawing, that drawing must 

 be known to be accurate; if we model from a specimen, we must be 

 sure about placing it in a posture that the animal is known to habitu- 

 ally assume. Great skill is next required in making a perfect model 

 or copy of the design or specimen, and then it goes without saying 

 that it is only through long experience and care thatthe necessary molds 

 and casts are obtained. Much depends at last upon the ability of the 

 artist to faithfully color the result of all the previous efforts; that is, 

 the trimmed east, lioruaday has said in his work on Taxidermy: 



For irregular objects, the working of a gelatine mold is perfection itself. It 

 yields gracefully in coming out of the undercuts and around corners, takes every 

 detail perfectly, and in the jacket its shape is always the same. A careful operator 

 can make from twenty to fifty copies of a east in a single mold before its loss of 

 sharpness necessitates its abandonment (p. 267). 



Hornaday's brief chapter on the making of molds and casts in the 

 volume just quoted is one of the most useful and valuable in the book. 



In passing, I am tempted to say here that the Cuttlefishes to which 

 this Octopus belongs are the most highly organized members of the class 

 of animals constituting the Cephalopoda. As the MalaMa, they were 

 fully recognized by Aristotle over three hundred years before Christ. Of 

 their distribution, Nicholson has said that — 



They are all marine, active, rapacious, and carnivorous in their habits, swimming 

 vigorously by means of the jets of water emitted from thefuunel, or in an opposite di- 

 rection by means of tins, and creeping about the sea bottom by means of the prehensile 

 arms. Some forms (such as the Octopodidce and Sepia) are essentially littoral animals. 



