Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit Part 14

A piece of wood should have been placed in the back of the plaster cast when making same, in order to fasten to a panel by screws from the back.

Paint the wood with melted paraffin before putting in the wet plaster or it may swell and subsequently shrink enough to crack the cast. By either of the preceding methods the entire fish can be mounted if desired.

The opening cut should be made from head to tail along the lower edge of the body in most scale fish and will require some neat modelling to hide as both sides are to be on exhibition.

Entire fish are usually supported by metal standards rising from a wooden base. Such standards are preferably of bra.s.s, threaded and fitted with nuts and rosettes at both ends. Two nuts at the lower end clamp the base and with the upper end inserted in the back board, the upper nut will adjust the fish at the right heighth. The rosettes cover the nuts and add a finished appearance.

Especially adapted to tarpon and other ponderous fish are medallions mounted on paper. To do this a half mould is made as described, the skin removed, cleaned, poisoned and replaced in the mould. Then it is backed up with numerous layers of soft paper, well pasted and pressed in with the hands. Let these layers of paper overlap the mould at least as much as the margin of skin left on the back.

When a sufficient thickness is attained fill the hollow form loosely with crumpled paper or excelsior and fit in place a back board of light wood. Nail through the margin of skin and paper into the edges of this.

If a number of large holes were made in the back board it will expedite the drying out.

When partly dry, remove from the mould, painting and finishing as before when completely dry. By this means the contour of large fish is absolutely reproduced and the finished work is extremely light and durable.

Many of the smooth skinned fishes are impossible to mount satisfactorily, a cast is the best we can do for them.

When using a living fish as a guide in painting, it may be confined in an aquarium and by sliding a wire screen part.i.tion, be kept just before the artist's eye.

CHAPTER XXI.

MOUNTING FISH--BAUMGARTEL METHOD.

Some years ago A Practical Method of Fish Mounting was advertised by Mr.

Baumgartel in Angling and Sporting publications. Entire satisfaction was given to those who studied and applied the lessons, through correspondence school methods. Both the author and publisher of HOME TAXIDERMY FOR PLEASURE AND PROFIT, are indeed glad to publish the entire course as used by Mr. Baumgartel, including diagrams, figures, etc., as same together with copyright was conveyed to A. R. Harding.

The same degree of excellence in mounting fish has not been so generally attained as in other branches of the taxidermy art, and this I believe is because an equal amount of study has not been given the subject.

Hundreds can mount birds well to one who can prepare fish in as skillful a manner, although the mounting of fish dates from as early a period in the art of taxidermy. It is a question of method and the right one.

The usual methods of mounting fish have proven so unsatisfactory that they have been almost entirely abandoned, and, until the method to be described was devised, it was necessary to place specimens in alcohol or other preserving liquids or to make plaster casts of them. The objections to the former process are that it is expensive, requiring especially constructed jars to show the specimens without distortion.

They usually lose all their natural colors, and in most cases shrink to such an extent as to give only an approximate idea of their original form. There are also serious objections to the latter method. Plaster casts are easily broken and certain parts, such as the interior of the mouth, cannot readily be produced. Further, it is not desirable in natural history collections to exhibit casts of the objects when the originals can be displayed. Then, too, the sportsman does not care for a cast of his "Big Fish," but wants the real thing to verify history of the one that didn't get away. To me a plaster cast of an object that can itself be preserved is about as interesting as a nicely painted decoy duck compares with a well-mounted skin.

As is the case with nearly every taxidermist, professional as well as amateur, I have always been an enthusiastic sportsman. The desire to preserve the specimens taken by me led me to devote myself to the study of taxidermy. Perhaps the dilatoriness of the "artist" who mounted my first specimens had a stimulating effect. Later, as a professional taxidermist, I for many years mounted fish by means of the various methods, but the results obtained were not satisfactory to me.

In 1903 Mrs. Baumgartel and I made a trip to Pine River, Michigan, for trout. It was in June. The weather turned cold, and we took few fish. On the twelfth I made what was to be my last cast, had taken down my rod and was walking along the bank of the river on my way to camp, when at the edge of a pool I noticed a fish jumping. I could not resist the temptation to try one more cast, and making preparations I dropped a Parmachene Belle a few inches from the spot where the fish had just broken the water. There was a rise, a strike, and I was fast to a fish destined to be mine. After an exciting struggle, I landed a thirteen-inch grayling weighing one pound and two ounces. Of course, this fish I had to preserve and wanted it to look as it did when taken from the net. We boarded the train for home that evening, and supplying my wife with reading matter, I was soon lost in meditation. The madam told me many times during the journey home that I was not at all companionable. Be that as it may, the result of the earnest study given the matter, and the previous experience gained in experimenting with other processes, was that a practical method of mounting fish was devised, a method by means of which the angler can successfully mount his own specimens. "Necessity is the mother of invention," you know.

A picture of this grayling is given below. It still occupies a position in our dining room, together with others to remind us of pleasant days on lake and stream. It is mounted with the very fly and leader on which it was taken.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRAYLING--RESULT OF MY FIRST EXPERIENCE AT FISH MOUNTING.]

For the past four years I have successfully taught my method by correspondence. A few years ago activities in other directions compelled me to give up taxidermy work, and other interests now demanding more of my personal attention, the publisher of this book, always on the alert for something of practical value to interest his readers, will present to you in these pages the identical instructions I have so successfully used. I take the liberty of quoting verbatim from a letter just received by me from a friend of a prominent eastern professional man, one who, while "chained to business," still finds time to get "close to nature"

for a season each year:

"Referring to the fish mounted on our Newfoundland trip: I may say that it was our first experience and we were agreeably surprised at results.

In all there were ten specimens of salmon, sea-trout and brook-trout mounted and we found no great difficulties. All the work was accomplished in an old barn after we got home evenings and early mornings before going out. The only obstacle we encountered was getting the fish back to the states in good shape. Five of the specimens now occupy prominent place in the Doctor's den and I am always pleased to point out to friends the results of our labors."

You can do as well.

INSTRUMENTS.

Knife.

Needle and thread.

Saw, fine toothed.

Scalpel.

Scissors, straight and curved.

Shears.

Skin sc.r.a.per, not the toothed-edge.

Tweezers.

One can get along with simply a jack-knife, pair of shears, and needle and thread; but to do first-cla.s.s work easily, good tools are required.

MATERIALS.

Alcohol.

Aluminum leaf.

a.r.s.enic, powdered.

Clay, potters' or modelling.

Eyes, gla.s.s, clear except pupils.

Papier mache, prepared.

Pine board.

Pins.

Plaster, calcined.

Tube paints.

Varnish, clear white.

Brushes.

PRELIMINARY INSTRUCTIONS--Try first a perch or other fish having scales firmly attached. See that the fins and tail are uninjured, and that no scales are missing from the side to be displayed. As every perfectly formed fish has both sides alike, and as ordinarily but one side can be seen at a time, only a little more than one half of the fish is to be mounted.

Note carefully the colors (including those of the eye and the interior of the mouth) of the freshly caught fish, making a sketch of the specimen, showing the extent of the different colors and markings, the spots, if any, and the eye. The pupil is not usually round. The eye of a lake trout appears like Fig. 1. A carefully kept note book is a valuable aid.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 1 Eye of Lake Trout]

While the tail is of course a fin (the caudal), in this work it will be called the "tail," to distinguish it from the other fins. See Fig. 2 for key to the names of the fins.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FISH IN MOULD. (Fig. 2.)

Names of fins: D--Dorsal, A--Adipose, C--Caudal (tail), P--Pectoral, V--Ventral, An--a.n.a.l.]

THE MOLD.--Wash the fish in water to remove dirt and mucus. On a board somewhat longer and wider than the fish, place a sufficient amount of moist sand in which to imbed the specimen to one-half its depth when lying on its side in the desired position. Level the sand and hollow it out for the larger part of the body. Large fish should be displayed straight, with the mouth closed or only slightly open. Smaller and more graceful ones may be shown in positions of activity; rising to fly, breaking away, etc. If the mouth is to be open, fill it with cotton or cloth in order to keep out the plaster. Place the fish in the position you wish it to have when mounted, the side to be displayed uppermost.

See that the dorsal and a.n.a.l fins, and the tail, lie flat on the sand, and that one-half the body appears above the sand its entire length.

There must be no uneven places. Viewed from the end, it should appear like Fig. 3; from the side, like Fig. 4.

[Ill.u.s.tration: END VIEW. (Fig. 3)]

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIDE VIEW. (Fig. 4)]