THE WHITE WHALE 1 79 



Although the white whale has thus been freqnently 

 kept alive as an aquarium exhibit, it is but imperfectly 

 represented in museums. A very young individual 

 is preserved at Leyden ; but it will be found that as 

 a rule, cetaceans are rare in mounted collections 

 of natural history. The immense size of many 

 renders them highly inconvenient subjects for exhibi- 

 tion ; besides, as pointed out by the late Sir W. H. 

 Flower, the oily skin is exceedingly difficult to pre- 

 serve in a satisfactory manner. Even the small 

 stuffed porpoises one sees, painted as near as 

 may be in their natural colours, are at best shrivelled 

 and unsatisfactory ; hence the exhibition of these 

 marine denizens is usually limited to a presentation 

 of their skeletons, with one or two very immature 

 specimens bottled in jars of spirit. Of late years, 

 however, a considerable advance has been made in 

 this field of museum art: cetaceans and fishes, in 

 fact many other subjects to which this difficulty 

 applies, have been beautifully modelled in papier 

 7ndchd or other composition, the counterfeits being 

 tinted in the natural colours and giving a more life- 

 life representation than could ever have been 

 executed with the dubious aid of a mummy-like, 

 dried-up skin. In addition, models made by this 

 method are of wonderful lightness, yet very strong; 

 it is recorded that a huge fish (skate) which cast in 

 plaster required several men to lift it, when 

 reproduced in paper could be easily held out in one 



