SCIENTIFIC TAXIDERMY FOR MUSEUMS. 395 



tion room, the grottos, of the 0". S. Fish Commission at Washington, 

 D. 0. Mr. Benedict, no doubt, has the correct idea in regard to the 

 form of the receptacles that should contain them, and that is a very 

 important step in advance. Added to this, the taxidermic artist has 

 a beautiful tield open to him in his method of making plaster casts and 

 casts of gelatine, upon both of which he may exert his utmost powers 

 and ability to color so as to have them resemble the natural fish as 

 closely as possible, and I mean the natural fish immediately after he 

 has been removed from the water and wiped dry. The study of the 

 proper colors alone is in itself a vast subject, for they must not only 

 counterpart the natural shades of the specimens, but they must be 

 selected with the view to their permanency and general effect. Vari- 

 ous methods of gilding and silvering upon plaster-of- Paris, gelatine 

 casts, and papier-mache ones require careful research and considera- 

 tion, as by their use many admirable results are to be obtained. 



As to the large cartilaginous fishes, as the rays, sharks, and their 

 kin, Ave must believe that the processes just referred to are at present the 

 only ones known to us by which the living specimens can be reproduced 

 with any marked fidelity to nature and fit for a first class museum. 



By the old fashion "stuffing" method, it seems quite out of the ques- 

 tion, even for the most skilled taxidermists among us, to succeed in 

 thus preserving a shark's skin, or that tissue in the troublesome ray. 

 They will not resist the effects of time. They shrink, become distorted, 

 and finally burst, and bring only failure and disrepute upon the art. 

 One may as well try and stuff a soap bubble, and fortunately there is 

 no necessity for either experiment. 



In his usual vigorous style, the artist I have last quoted, remarks: 



Rays are the meanest of all subjects that vex the soul of the taxidermist. Shun 

 them as you would the smallpox or the devil. Such abomiuable 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 lifelike, 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 mor- 

 tify 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 

 fiat. He was liat enough to navigate the Platte River at low water, which even a 

 thick shingle can not do. He was lifelike and likewise was a great triumph. Put 

 almost the moment my hack was turned upon him forever, he went hack upon me. 



