CHAPTER VII 



THE TREATMENT OF REPTILES, AMPHIBIANS, AND FISHES^ 

 BY TAXIDERMIC AND OTHER METHODS 



DIVISION I 

 BY TAXIDERMIC METHODS 



Fishes 



At the outset, when considering the wisdom or otherwise of 

 writing this chapter, it seemed useless to attempt to give direc- 

 tions for skinning and setting up such objects as those denoted 

 by the heading, for the reasons given in the following pages ; 

 but as there may be some taxidermist foolish enough to go 

 to some trouble in order to painfully and successfully elaborate 

 a shapeless mummy, the ensuing pages are written in the hope 

 that the taxidermic processes detailed therein will, if he follows 

 them, make him a sadder and a wiser man. As an addendum 

 and further severe discouragement may be quoted the follow- 

 ing pertinent remarks from one of the Badminton Library 

 series : ^ — 



The exhibition of casts of fish by Mr. Jardine and others, few as 

 they were numerically, sounded, I believe, the death-knell of taxidermy. 



^ The arrangement of these chapters — which is necessarily from highest to lowest 

 form, owing to the difficulty of interesting the amateur in his work if the invertebrata 

 be taken first (as they should be) — ^is here broken for a similar reason, i.e. that fishes 

 are better known (and liked) than reptiles ; the heading, however, shows the sequence 

 obtaining in this work. * Fishing, pp. 149, 150. 



