The American Museum Journal 



V"i,, III, MARCH, 1903 No. 3. 



EREAFTER The American Museum Journal 

 will be issued at quarterly instead of monthly in- 

 tervals. Each number will contain at least three 

 times as much matter as is now placed in one and 

 will present a review of the Museum's activities dur- 

 ing the preceding three months. A guide leaflet monographing 

 some Museum exhibit, similar, therefore, in character, to those 

 already issued, will accompany each number of the Journal. 



NEW METHODS IN TAXIDERMY. 



Under modern methods of preparation animals are not 

 stuffed, but modelled. The preservation of the skin itself falls 

 to the lot of a tanner and hide-dresser who, in the strict sense 

 of the word, is the taxidermist of to-day. The manikin on 

 which the skin is to be placed is first modelled, life-size, in clav, 

 all the anatomy of form being worked out with due detail. This 

 life-size clay image is then cast in plaster and from the plaster 

 molds the final manikin of cheese-cloth, papier-mache, shellac, 

 and fine wire net is made. It is a mere shell, not more than a 

 sixteenth of an inch thick, very light, but strong and durable. 

 It never shrinks or cracks, and is consequently a very distinct 

 advance over a clay manikin which, in drying, materially 

 changes in form with consequent great injury to the skin. 



This new method was originated by Mr. C. E. Akeley of the 

 Field Columbian Museum, with whom Mr. J. L. Clark of the 

 American Museum's Department of Preparation has lately been 

 studying. The first animal mounted by Mr. Clark after the 

 Akeley method is the Virginian doe figured in tliis number of 

 the Journal. 



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