450 CHAPTERS ON THE NATURAL HISTORY 



perfectly lifelike attitude can be given to the form, as designed by 

 the taxidermic artist. Over this the skin is placed and fastened 

 by methods that subsequently give it all the appearance of the 

 animal or specimen in life. I cannot in a brief chapter give all 

 the details necessary to accomplish this, nor the great care and 

 skill it demands, but after many years of experimentation the 

 artisans of the Leyden Museum have reduced this operation to a 

 positive science, and in most cases, as will be seen later on, the 

 results are extremely satisfactory. 



One of the most recent achievements in this direction has been 

 the mounting of a remarkably fine specimen of that most extraor- 

 dinary of fishes, the Sunfish. I refer to the Mola rotunda of Cu- 

 vier, the Orthagoriscus mola of some authors, the 0. nasus of 

 others. In operating upon this specimen, the first step taken was 

 to secure as good a photograph as could be obtained of the dead 

 fish after it came into the hands of the taxidermists. Next, be- 

 fore the specimen was skinned, an accurate outline was made a 

 most important step in the procedure. Then, in much reduced 

 size, the fish was modeled in clay, and from that model the speci- 

 men was reproduced (after being skinned) in the aforesaid mate- 

 rial, the interior of this last model being left hollow, in order to 

 render it as light as possible. This model resembles exactly the 

 skinned fish, and over it the skin was placed, with every neces- 

 sary precaution to reproduce the animal as it appeared in life. 

 Thousands of pins were used to make the skin fit properly into 

 the sulci among the various muscles and elsewhere; the internal 

 surface of skin being first poisoned with a preparation of dex- 

 trine, arsenic, and water, so that after the pins were removed the 

 skin retained the exact position on the model that had been given 

 it through their use. Finally, after the skin had become thor- 

 oughly dry it was tinted with the proper pigments, so as to lend 

 to it the original color the fish had when alive. The setting of the 

 artificial eye, the restoration of the mouth parts and fins, of 

 course, all require the special care of the artist and make due 

 demands upon his skill. 



Owing to the fact that there are certain osseous formations in 

 the skin at the snout, in the neighborhood of the pectoral fins, 

 and the free margins of the tail, the model in these situations 

 does not exactly agree in outline with the mounted specimen. 



This preparation has been adversely criticised by some Ameri- 

 can taxidermists, who claim that the longitudinal wrinkles shown 



