360 Miscellaneous. CHAP. xxv. 



This is the old way of stuffing fish that I was taught at a museum. 

 But I have evolved a method of my own that is, I think, very superior, 

 in that it preserves the true form of the fish, a point which is of great 

 importance to a naturalist, who, from the form and dentition of a fish 

 entirely new to him, should be able to tell you half its habits at a 

 glance, whereas it would be difficult indeed to do so after some 

 taxidermist of the old school has changed its natural shape by bulging 

 it out here and there with tightly rammed in cotton according to his 

 own sweet will. 



Directly the fish is dead, and before it loses its figure, on a plank 

 take a plaster of Paris mould of one side of it, the under side, making 

 the mould a little deeper than half way up the depth of the fish lying 

 on its side, so as to round the corner of its stomach, and get the form 

 of it, and yet not so much that you cannot remove the fish when the 

 mould has set. When the plaster has set quite hard, which it will do 

 very quickly, take the fish out of the mould, and proceed as by the old 

 method. This done, wash off the paper and put the skin into the 

 mould, with the cut open side upwards, making it fit well into the 

 mould by pushing it in with a house painter's large brush. Having 

 handy a glue pot of strong glue well melted, and arsenical soap, minus 

 the soap used in its composition, and fine sawdust, smear the inside of 

 the fish skin with a mixture of the poison and the glue, and over it a 

 coating as thick as you can of glue and sawdust, and then fill in with 

 sawdust, so that the glue shall take up as much sawdust as it will, and 

 press down the sawdust to make sure of the skin fitting well into the 

 mould. Then leave it till you are quite sure that the glue is as hard as 

 a board. Don't be in a hurry about this, but make quite sure of it by 

 leaving a little of the glue exposed on the plank till it is as hard as 

 it can be. Then you may shake out any not-adhering sawdust and 

 remove your fish from the mould. If you find you cannot do so 

 because you have a little overdone the mould, and the fish is now 

 rigid, it is a fault on the right side, and easily got over by cutting 

 away a little of the mould. Your fish skin ought to come out the 

 exact form of nature, internally lined with a rigid plank-like veneer, 

 formed by the glue and sawdust, that will unyieldingly keep the skin 

 in true shape. Sew up the flap on the cut side, spread fins and tail, 

 and turpentine and varnish as in the old process. 



At one time I used to take an outside mould of the fish, and then 



