A CONTRIBUTION TO MUSEUM TECHNIQUE. 
S. E. MEEK. 
To exhibit fishes properly in a museum has been no easy 
task. Many methods have been devised, but none have as 
yet given universal satisfaction. Land animals, such as mam- 
mals, birds, reptiles, etc., are mounted and arranged in cases 
according to their natural order, to show relationship, or they 
are mounted in groups illustrating some of their habits and 
natural surroundings. These methods have received universal 
approval. With fishes the case is quite different. To mount 
them is difficult, and in most cases unsatisfactory, while many of 
the smaller soft-rayed fishes cannot be mounted. Painted plas- 
ter casts, or casts made of other material and painted, are used 
in some museums. In case nothing better can be had, these 
serve a good purpose and are especially desirable when a 
collection is to be exhibited at different times in various places. 
They are simply representations, and do not meet the desire 
of the visitor as do the real fishes themselves. A mounted 
fish is “a fish out of water," a fish robbed of his natural 
» surroundings. 
Three years ago we began some experiments in this museum 
to devise a metal case or vessel with a plate-glass front in which 
we could exhibit fishes in alcohol in a horizontal or natural 
position. A joint between the metal vessel and the plate glass, 
which would hold alcohol, and which would compensate at any 
temperature for the unequal expansion of the plate glass and 
metal, was devised by Mr. Wines, our building superintendent. 
Under his direction a vessel was made in December, 1898, with 
a plate-glass front of 18 by 36 inches. Nine species of sunfishes 
were placed in this vessel, and it was filled with 7o per cent 
alcohol, and put on the wall of one of our exhibition rooms. A 
few weeks later another case of 14 by 32 inches was made, and 
in it was placed a large blue-black trout from Lake Crescent, 
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