realistic and the rocks 

 at the rear in the fore- 

 ground have their real- 

 ity lessened by a spray 

 of purple color. 



Another problem had 

 to do with the tech- 

 nique of making casts 

 of the salamanders. 

 They are thin-skinned 

 and soft-bodied and 

 when taken from the 

 water keep their form 

 about as well as does a 

 jelly-fish and in truth 

 are just about as satis- 

 factory to cast. The 

 impossibility of getting 

 casts of soft-bodied, 

 aquatic amphibians has 

 spurred on some experi- 

 ment and much discus- 

 sion in the taxidermy 

 shops of the Museum 

 for a year or more. 

 Casts made from the 

 frozen animals and from 

 forms killed and slightly 

 hardened in formalde- 

 hyde had given little 

 more than caricatures 

 of the salamanders and 

 no medium had been 



found which would harden in water and thus replace plaster of Paris in the 

 mold-making. One day however one of the Museum sculptors, who has 

 studied in Paris art schools, was heard to tell the story of his experience 

 in making a mold of a delicate flower under oil instead of in air. This 

 gave the clue. The salamanders were killed with ether, then immediately 

 posed under oil — kerosene oil was used which is clear and transparent — 

 where the soft specimens with their delicate rufflings of skin were buoyed up 

 as if alive in water. Then the molds were made, the salamanders still under 

 the oil and the plaster hardening in this medium quite as in air. Thus the 

 wax casts of the group are lifelike not only in matters of pose and form 

 but also in everv minute detail of surface texture. Seven of the nine 



He reaches 

 from under the 

 rock to seize 

 a crayfish from 

 the crevices. 

 Wax cast from 

 a model in clay 



Sliedding the 

 slvin. He i)ulls 

 it off the tail, 

 then greedily 

 swallows it. 

 Wax cast from 

 life 



Contest be- 

 tween a sala- 

 mander on 

 guard at his 

 nest and a can- 

 nibalistic in- 

 truder who has 

 stolen a string 

 of the eggs. 

 Wax casts 

 from life 



313 



