August, 1922 
349 
The specimen for the first attempt 
must be a fresh fish from the market, 
because the fins of a formalin specimen 
cannot be kept in shape and alcohol will 
hinder the setting of the plaster. We 
found later that the formalin would also 
have kept the plaster from setting. 
The museum authorities approved the 
purchase of four fish for the experiment, 
and we got three flounders and one large 
buffalo fish. Since the slime on the fish 
would keep the plaster from setting we 
tried to kill it by putting the first flounder 
in a bath of formalin. This did not 
work very well, but it did give us enough 
to show that we were on the right track 
and that specimen, poor as it is, com- 
pares favorably wdth many that are be- 
ing shown in museums. 
Our first real success came with the 
big buffalo. That was a good specimen 
to start with and everything worked just 
right. It has a place of honor in the 
exhibit of fishes. At present it is in 
the same case with some especially good 
mounted skins. The one or two poorer 
mounts in that case show up painfully 
by contrast. 
After putting up about forty speci- 
mens by this method Mr. Pray carries it 
through about thus (some changes are 
made almost every time) : When the 
fresh fish comes in he washes it very 
carefully and treats it to remove the 
slime. Next he poses it in a natural 
position and pours the plaster over it. 
\\'hen the mold is set he takes out the 
fish, cuts off the fins and tail anl pre- 
serves them. Usually within a few days 
he spreads the fins to dry in the position 
he wants them and makes a cast from 
the mold. When this cast is thoroughly 
dry he sizes it with two or three coats 
of varnish and sets the fins in place with 
“composition.” After this is fully dry 
the specimen is ready to be painted and 
The finished product, a beautiful mount 
from a frozen specimen (turbot) which 
had been shipped a great distance. 
then comes the real test of the method. 
If everything has been done right we 
have a surface which shows not only 
every scale, but all the modeling of the 
muscles, and when colored in a natural 
manner without hiding this fine detail 
we have a mounted fish which will be as 
nearly permanent as we can get. 
The pictures show the process very 
Well. First we have a fresh mackerel 
and a mold ready for casting. Next we 
have a cast of the body of a flounder 
with the fins ready to be put in place, 
and a sunfish with the fins and eyes set. 
In the third picture we have a fine speci- 
men of the English turbot which had an 
adventurous career. It was caught some- 
where in the North Sea and frozen. 
After being shipped to Chicago it was 
thawed out and sold to one of the large 
hotels. The chef thought it was not 
good enough for his trade and turned 
it back. The scientist saw it and paid a 
small price for it. After all its trials it 
was in condition to make a very good 
exhibit. 
T F it is possible, a fish for mounting 
^ should reach the taxidermist fresh. 
If it must travel far, cut through the 
ribs on the side that is not to be shown 
and continue an incision deep into the 
meat all along the side and tail ; take out 
the gills and intestines and eyeballs and 
wash out well with strong brine. Then fill 
the body cavity and deep flesh incision 
with dry salt. Also salt the fins. Next wrap 
(Continued on page 372) 
THE TURKEY I DID NOT SHOOT 
A LESSON IN TRUE SPORTSMANSHIP WHICH IT WOULD BE WELL 
FOR THE RISING GENERATION OF HUNTERS TO EMULATE 
I HAVE read, with much interest, the 
articles which have appeared in re- 
cent issues of Forest and Stream 
about the wild turkeys of Michigan. 
I am a native son of that grand old 
commonwealth, although for the past 
thirty-three years I have been a resi- 
dent and citizen of the state of Colo- 
rado. I was born in 1863 in a little 
country village about ten miles north 
of Ann Arbor and nearly on the line 
between Washtenaw and Livingston 
counties. This part of Michigan, as 
is well known, is the hardwood section 
of the state (the northern portion then 
comprised the great white-pine forests), 
and my boyhood was spent in tramping 
through the great woods of oak, maple, 
ash, hickory and black-walnut with dad’s 
old gun on my shoulder, hunting squir- 
rels, rabbits, grouse, quail and pigeons, 
with which the woods and half-cleared 
fields at that time abounded. Those vir- 
gin forests are now, alas, well-tilled 
fields of waving wheat, oats and corn in 
season, but at the time of which I write, 
which was just after the close of the 
Civil War. I think this part of Michif^an 
constituted the best small-game section 
of our country. 
By J. D. STEVENS 
The war, of course, had interfered 
with the agricultural development of the 
section. The land had all along been 
homesteaded but fathers and sons had 
“marched to the war away” at Lincoln’s 
first .call and the farms had been left 
to be cultivated as best they could by the 
old men and very young boys. The 
woods were left — to be later cleared into 
producing fields by those fathers and 
sons when they returned. 
A great deal of the country was cov- 
ered by hackmatack, or as it was lo- 
cally called, tamarack, swamps, contain- 
ing hundreds of little lakes, and it was 
in these tamarack jungles that quite a 
large flock of wild turkeys had ranged 
for many years, coming out in the late 
fall to feed in the corn fields which bor- 
dered these swamps and where, in the 
early morjiing, following a light snow, 
we could pick up their tracks. 
I was too young at that time to tote 
a gun, but on many a memorable morn- 
ing, perhaps a few days before Thanks- 
giving, dad would wake me up and say : 
“Come on, son, a good tracking snow 
fell last night so we will go after a tur- 
key for our Thanksgiving dinner.” So 
donning the game-bag and other accou- 
trements and as full of pleasant antici- 
pations as a ten-year-old boy could be, 
I would sally forth with him. 
|\/FY father was a native of New Jer- 
sey, born a few months after the 
battle of Waterloo, and came to Michi- 
gan in 1838, bringing with him a 
14-gauge, double-barrel, muzzle-loading 
fowling piece, for which, if I remember 
correctly, he paid forty-eight dollars. All 
I can recall of the gun is that it bore a 
“Liege” stamp; the stock was of English 
walnut root, beautifully, hand tooled, and 
the hardest-hitting gun I ever used. I 
would give a good deal to possess it now, 
just for a keepsake. 
We usually picked up the tracks of 
the turkeys along some corn field next 
to the swamps and then would follow a 
stern chase of many miles through 
swamps and thickets, across other corn 
fields and through the tall, dead grass 
of bordering marshes, a heart-breaking 
tramp, perhaps, but what genuine sports- 
man minds a little thing like that? 
After a while one of the tracks would 
leave the main group of tracks and dad 
would promptly take up the trail of this 
{Continued on page 372) 
