THE EXHIBITION OF FISHES 



Bi/ Bdshford Demi 



FISHES, as every museum lius found to its cost, are among the least 

 satisfactory objects to exhibit to the average ^•isitor. The\- are 

 soft-bodied, mucous-co\ered creatures, which appear at their best 

 only under water; they shrink in the air, lose their colors, wrinkle, and 

 often appear little like living animals. In most museums they are ex- 

 hibited preserved in fluid, sometimes delicately painted before they are 

 placed in jars. They are apt howexer to be shrunken, opaque, faded and 

 generally unattractive, so that a visitor may pass them b\' and have but 

 an imperfect idea of the real fishes, their graceful or curious forms and their 

 beautiful colors. Many a person, for this reason only, has failed to find 

 how interesting the fishes are, and how important in the economy of nature. 



How to exhibit fishes satisfactorily is a great puzzle. If they are not 

 to be installed in jars, and this method of display is becoming less and 

 less common in museums, mounted specimens, as usually shown, are 

 nearly as unsatisfactory. Their scales curl up in course of time, the fins 

 warp, and altogether the result is unnatural, sometimes grotesque. 



In a few museums, notably in Brooklyn and Chicago, efforts ha\e been 

 made to exhibit fishes as though living in aquaria. In these instances 

 effective backgrounds are introduced and stuffed fishes are painted and 

 posed in lifelike fashion. This de\'elopment is certainly, from the popular 

 point of view, an advance over earlier systems. Casts have also been 

 used to advantage when these were taken from fishes before they had 

 shrunken in contact with air. This method was developed a generation ago 

 by the Ignited States National Museum, and numerous copies of casts 

 were distributed to galleries here and abroad. In general howe\ei-, casts 

 of this kind lacked much of the feeling of the actual specimens: fins and 

 similar delicate structures were not well represented in plaster, and various 

 technical difficulties, including the matter of coloring, prevented the usual 

 cast from being a successful portrayal of the li\ing fish. 



In the exhibition of fishes in the American Museum of Natural History 

 there have, until recently, l)een used only (1) plaster casts of the National 

 Museum type, and (2) mounted skins, some of which, prepared l)y careful 

 taxidermists and colored from fr..\sh material, were the points of departure 

 in our present work. Where skins or casts were not available, the required 

 types were represented by models, and in these, better poses could some- 

 times be given. Of necessity however, model-making was a laborious 

 process, for the greatest care had to be used in ol)taining accuracy in pro- 

 portions and contours; indeed no on(> but a sculptor will realize how many 

 subtle curves and troublesome details occur on the surface of a fish. In 

 order to indicate the fins adecjuately, many plans were devised: one of these 



171 



