CH. VII.] FISH-TAXIDERMY THAMES-TROUT. 105 



It is now quite a matter for condolence to see 

 a fish on whose perfect condition and lovely colour 

 you gazed with fond admiration, as he lay on the 

 bank your prize after a well-fought battle, trans- 

 formed into the wretched Mummy which he too 

 often appears when returned to you from the 

 hands of the Stuffer to whom you had, not without 

 a feeling of pardonable pride, entrusted him. 



The two points which seem to present the 

 greatest difficulties in the preservation of fish are, 

 the tendency of the skin to shrink and get out of 

 shape, and to lose its colour and become dark. 

 The specimen in which, to my mind, these ob- 

 stacles have been most successfully surmounted, 

 is to be seen in the shop-window of a worthy 

 fishing-tackle maker, Roblow, of 30 Upper Mary- 

 lebone Street, Portland Place, being that of a 

 Trout (fourteen pounds weight, he tells me), 

 caught at Teddington Weir in 1846. It must 

 have been a " perfect picture " of a Thames Trout, 

 and well deserves a visit. 



