Taxidermy and Zoological Collecting Part 21

The larger lizards are generally so round and plump-bodied they may very properly be mounted with tow and clay legs, and a body-filling of clean and soft chopped tow, the same as small mammals. If one is encountered which has a high, sharp, spinal crest, which cannot be reproduced with loose filling, then it is necessary to make the legs and tail, wire all together, and make an excelsior manikin in two halves, so that each side may be inserted in the body independently, and then the two may be sewed together and covered with clay as necessary.

At Professor Ward's celebrated establishment I once saw Mr. Webster remove the entire skeleton from a _Hatteria punctata_, a rare New Zealand lizard about sixteen inches in length, replace the leg bones and skull with wooden counterfeits, and successfully mount the skin. This was quite a feat, and was the only instance of the kind that ever came to my knowledge. The chief difficulty lay in removing the skull from the skin, which grew tightly upon it, and in successfully replacing it with a wooden imitation.

CROCODILIA: _The Crocodiles and Alligators._--These great saurians--thick-hided, case-hardened, and always fat--require no carefully made manikins, no clay save in the small ones, nor very gentle treatment of any kind, unless the specimens happen to be young and tender. Small crocodilians should be mounted in the same way as the larger lizards, using clay next to the skin of the body and tail. I once achieved success with a tiny alligator, and delighted its bereaved owner, by filling it with clay on a core of excelsior, and modeling the form into perfect shape.

Large saurians should be mounted on the same general plan as wolves and small bears, viz., by cutting the leg-irons long, pa.s.sing the inner ends through a rather small centre board, bending them down to the wood, and fastening with staples. Of course the leg-irons must fasten underneath the pedestal by means of nuts. The legs are made of tow, and so is the tail, which must have in its centre a stout iron rod, cut about four inches shorter than the end of the tail to allow for shrinkage. At two or three points equidistant from the end of the tail, and from each other, fasten a stout wire to the tail rod, so that when the specimen is finished these wires can be pa.s.sed down through holes bored in the pedestal, and used to draw the tail down tightly and hold it there. If this is forgotten the tail will spring up in spite of you, and show daylight underneath, which never happens with the tail of a living saurian.

As to att.i.tude, one or two hints will suffice. A live saurian, either crawling or at rest, nearly always carries his legs well up to his body. Do not spread his legs far out, but bend them up rather close to the animal's body, as if he expected to use them to walk with. The body should always rest down upon the ground. Give the tail two or three curves sidewise to relieve its stiffness. The head should be held well up, but the elevation should be given by the neck alone, with the head itself in a horizontal position, turned a trifle to the right or left to avoid extreme stiffness in the att.i.tude.

When your large alligator has been put together, suspend it from the ceiling, bottom upward, and stuff the thick part of the tail, the body, and the neck with straw. Begin at the end of the tail, and fill and sew up until the head is reached. It is necessary to use stout and very sharp glover's needles of large size in sewing through the h.o.r.n.y-hide of an old saurian, and the thread should be the best of linen twine, doubled and waxed until it is in the best possible condition for holding. Sometimes a skin is so h.o.r.n.y it is necessary to pierce holes for the needle with an awl. The shrinking power of a big saurian is something fearful to behold, therefore prepare your seams accordingly.

The centre-board of the body should be placed low enough that two screw-bolts, six inches long, may be put through the pedestal from underneath, and screwed into the board to bring the body of the animal down upon the pedestal as closely as possible, and also to hold it more securely. Of course, each leg-iron must pa.s.s downward through the foot, and fasten with a nut underneath the pedestal.

The tongue of a saurian is not free, but the skin may be removed from its upper surface, the flesh replaced with clay, and the skin sewed down again.

The color of the tongue and roof of the mouth of a saurian is pale yellow, a little lighter than Naples yellow, but never pink. In young specimens the inside of the mouth is white.

Bear in mind this fact, that the eye of an alligator or crocodile is of a dark greenish color, and the pupil is vertical.

The thin serrated scales, which form the crest of the tail, must be clamped firmly between thick pieces of card-board while they are drying, so that they will retain their proper shape and erectness, for otherwise they will curl up and become very unsightly.

After a saurian has dried properly, and has been "mached," it should be varnished all over with a coat of white varnish and turpentine, to bring out the colors.

If the teeth of an alligator need to be cleaned and whitened, brush them with muriatic acid, washing it off again almost immediately with plenty of clear water.

CHELONIA: _The Turtles._--This group embraces the sea-turtles, having the fore limbs developed as long, flat, triangular flippers, with large head, small under sh.e.l.l, and with head and flippers non-retractile,--the terrapins, soft-sh.e.l.led turtles, and tortoises. Of the large, sea-going species, our ocean waters produce the huge leather-back or harp-turtle, the loggerhead, next in size, the green turtle and the hawksbill, which last yields the valuable tortoise-sh.e.l.l of commerce. To the taxidermist, a fresh hawksbill to be mounted is a thing of beauty and a joy forever; the smooth and succulent green turtle is also a welcome guest; the big loggerhead is a serious affair, and the huge, lumbering, greasy 800-pound leather-back is a first cla.s.s calamity. Shun him, unless there is plenty of money behind him.

I once had the misfortune to be chief mourner over a leather-back which pulled down 940 pounds dead weight--mostly oil.

"We conquered, but Bozzaris fell,"

vowing that neither gold nor glory (neither of which is yielded by _Sphargis coriacea_) should ever again tempt us to "strike oil" in that manner. The soft and gelatinous sh.e.l.l of that monster dripped clear oil for three months, and actually yielded several gallons.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XIV. MOUNTING AN ALLIGATOR.--LAST STAGE.]

Fig. 19 shows the underside of a turtle, and the dotted line indicates where the cut has been made in the skin near the posterior edge of the plastron, where the sh.e.l.l bridge that unites the upper with the under sh.e.l.l has been sawn through with a small saw. The process of skinning such a subject has been already described, and the process of mounting is to be carried out on precisely the same general principles as described and ill.u.s.trated in the mounting of mammals with long hair, with but slight variations.

After the legs and neck have been made with tow, the tow wrapping should be covered with a quarter of an inch of soft clay, so the skin can afterward be modeled down upon it, either smoothly or wrinkled, as in life. The body should be stuffed with straw to keep the sh.e.l.l from collapsing while drying. The divided portions of the sh.e.l.l must then be joined and wired together firmly with soft bra.s.s wires pa.s.sed through small holes, as shown in the figure. Of course, the cuts in the skin must be sewn up neatly but firmly.

When the specimen has been placed on its pedestal, it then remains to shape the legs, neck, and feet, which the soft clay underneath renders quite easy. Folds and wrinkles in the skin must be exaggerated, to provide for what is sure to disappear by shrinkage in drying.

CHAPTER XXVI.

MOUNTING FISHES.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.--Judging from specimens generally, it would seem that taxidermists, the world over, either do not know how to mount fish specimens with the same degree of excellence as mammals and birds, or else they are universally slighted by intention. Certain it is, that in nearly every large zoological museum the stuffed fishes are the least attractive, and the least like life of all the vertebrates. In many instances the reptiles are not far behind in unsightliness, although as a rule they are a little more life-like than the fishes. In only one natural history museum out of twenty-seven have I found a collection of stuffed fishes which surpa.s.sed in number and quality of specimens the collection of birds and mammals, and formed the most attractive feature of the entire museum. That fish collection is to be seen in the Government Museum at Madras, India.

The specimens were all mounted while fresh from the ocean, which, of course, has been a great advantage to the taxidermist. I was somewhat surprised to learn that the taxidermist in question was an Indian native, named P. Anthony Pillay, because East Indian natives are, almost without exception, very indifferent taxidermists.

None of the specimens are mounted on standards, but either lie flat in table cases, or, if too large for that, hang against the wall. The common scaly fishes always lie upon one side, usually the right, with tail curved upward.

Mr. Pillay a.s.sured me that the exquisite smoothness of his specimens was due to the use of silk cotton as a filling material, plucked from the pod and cleaned by hand. His scale fishes and sharks were very life-like, but his rays and ray-like _Rhin.o.bati_ were somewhat faulty. Being filled with fibrous material, they lacked that extreme flatness so characteristic of fishes of this type.

Numerous methods for the preparation of fishes have been devised. In the collection in the National Museum made by the Society of American Taxidermists there is a series of six specimens, representing five different methods, mostly bad. One is a fish carved in wood and painted; another is a flimsy paper cast of Dutch extraction; a third is a painted plaster cast; the fourth is a half fish, or fish medallion, and the fifth is an entire stuffed fish. It is necessary to add, however, that the last-mentioned specimen falls far short of properly representing its cla.s.s--the most common of all in museums. In disposing of this subject it is not my purpose to waste time in the discussion of obsolete and valueless methods, but to describe only those of practical utility.

MOUNTING SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED FISHES WITH SCALES.--The process of skinning a fish has been described in a previous chapter, and on this subject but few other points remain to be noticed. These are the following:

From some fishes the scales fall off so very easily while they are being skinned and mounted, it is necessary to wipe the specimen dry, and before starting to remove the skin, paste a piece of thin but tough writing-paper over the whole fish excepting the fins, and let it dry before proceeding further. With a pen, line out the course of the opening cut, and make a mark across it here and there to guide you in joining the edges again after mounting. This paper covering will fully protect the scales from displacement, and it is to remain on until the mounting is completed, when its removal is easily accomplished with water and a sponge.

On the great majority of scaled fishes, however, the scales are sufficiently persistent that the above is unnecessary. But keep the fish wet while you are at work upon it, and handle it with care and delicacy. If you let the scales get dry, their edges begin at once to curl up, which must not be permitted.

It is generally of great advantage to allow the skin of a fish to lie over night in spirits (two parts of ninety-five per cent alcohol to one of water) for the sake of curing and toughening the integument, and curing whatever particles of flesh may chance to remain in the skull.

After having removed the skin, it must be cleaned most carefully. With a keen-bladed knife, pare and sc.r.a.pe off all the adherent flesh from the skin, cut out the gills, and remove the flesh from the interior of the skull, and the base of the fins. Of course the eyes must come out also.

With a stout pair of scissors trim off the projecting bases of the rays of the dorsal and a.n.a.l fins, so that the fin itself may set squarely upon the top of the centre-board.

I will now describe, step by step, the entire process of mounting a fish by what I consider the simplest, easiest, and most practical method known. Be advised in the beginning, however, that you can not mount fishes on nice bra.s.s standards with nothing at all in the way of special materials and tools. You must have an a.s.sortment of hard bra.s.s wire, Nos. 3 to 10, a hack-saw, some bra.s.s rosettes, a small die for cutting threads on bra.s.s wire, and taps of corresponding sizes for cutting threads in the bra.s.s nuts and rosettes. The outfit is by no means expensive, but it is indispensable if you wish to mount your specimens on standards, and thus have them show off to the finest advantage.

1. Procure a piece of soft wood, pine preferred, and with the skinned body of the fish before you, whittle the wood down to the general shape of the body, but one-fourth smaller in actual size. In Plate IV. the outline _a_, _b_, _c_ represents the wooden centre-board, which is really the foundation upon which the mounted specimen is to be constructed.

2. Prepare two small bra.s.s standards (_e_, _e_), and screw the upper end of each firmly into a gimlet-hole bored into the centre-board at _d_, _d_. At the lower end of each standard the thread should be cut for a little more than an inch of its length, and a turned bra.s.s rosette screwed on, to rest on top of the pedestal, and hold the rod from slipping down through the hole. Underneath the pedestal a square nut is screwed on tightly. These rods should be exactly perpendicular, and the axis of the fish (an imaginary line running lengthwise through the centre of the bulk), should be as nearly as possible horizontal. A fish mounted with its tail too high in the air seems to be taking a header, and when the reverse is the case, it suggests a ship sinking stern foremost.

3. Having thoroughly cleaned the inside of the skin, anoint it liberally with a.r.s.enical soap, or if you have not that, with a plentiful sprinkling of powdered a.r.s.enic.

4. For the fourth step--filling--I shall describe two very different processes, advising the beginner to make a fair trial of both, and then adopt the one he succeeds best with.

The filling which I infinitely prefer for a fish is clay and chopped tow, mixed together, and used as stiff as may be to work well. Clay which is too soft when used shrinks as the excess of water dries out of it, and is liable to leave an uneven surface. With a flat modeling-tool, coat the centre-board evenly with the clay until you have reproduced the form and size of the fleshy body of the fish. Then put the skin over this, press it down firmly to exclude all air-bubbles, working it from the back downward.

When you find that the skin fits perfectly and without any drawing or straining, begin at the tail and sew the skin together, making, as you proceed, a perfect finish of the specimen. Draw the edges closely together, and the more perfectly the scales can be made to hide the opening the better.

The other filling process is to use fine, soft tow, chopped up finely. With a goodly quant.i.ty of tow before you, open the fish skin, and with your forceps insert a layer of tow all along the back, and also on the side which lies next to the table. Then put the centre-board in its place, while the skin still lies before you, and with the forceps distribute an equal quant.i.ty of tow between the upper side of the board and the skin. Thus a perfect and even cushion of tow is provided to lie between the skin and the board at all points save below. Begin at the tail, and with your needle and thread sew up the skin for an inch or two; then with your small forceps or filler, stuff to the right size and shape the portion that has been sewn up. That done, sew up another section, and stuff as before, proceeding thus until the head is reached and the entire fish has been filled and shaped.

Notches must be cut in the skin at the points where the bra.s.s rods enter it.

All this time the fish has been kept wet so that the fins are soft and elastic, and the scales are perfectly smooth. The fins must now be spread, and each one enclosed between two bits of pasteboard cut to the right shape, and held firmly together by sticking pins through them around the edge of the fin. Do not on any account stick pins _through_ the fins, or you will afterward have the trouble of filling up the pin-holes. Force the pins through the two thicknesses of pasteboard with your small pliers, and whatever may be the shape, or size, or position of a fin, you must so shape your pasteboard that the fin will be spread, and have the same position it would on a live fish.

6. The last thing at this stage is to mix together equal quant.i.ties of white varnish and turpentine, sponge off the fish carefully, removing every particle of clay, tow, or dirt, and varnish it all over. This prevents the scales from curling up when they dry, and it also goes far toward fixing the colors of the fish. The fins are to be varnished afterward when they get dry.

7. While the fish is drying, the eyes should be prepared. Every one knows that the eyes of different genera of fishes vary in shape, size, and color, to as great a degree as do the eyes of quadrupeds. For mounted specimens, one of two things may be done; insert a conventional silver or golden gla.s.s eye, or else keep on hand a lot of uncolored fish eyes, and paint each pair from nature, in oil colors of course, to suit the particular specimen it is to adorn. When the paint has had time to dry and harden, cover it with two or three coats of sh.e.l.lac to protect the colors from any changes which might be effected by the material in which the eye is to be set. If the coating of paint is left unprotected, it is very apt to undergo chemical changes, and the eye may thereby be ruined.

8. The eye may be set in clay or putty _provided none of the setting material is to be exposed_. If the gla.s.s eye is smaller than the opening, which is very often the case, set it in fine papier-mache, which must be nicely modeled around the gla.s.s, and afterward coated with sh.e.l.lac, and painted.

10. The subject of painting fishes will be considered in a separate chapter.

Simple as it may appear, and really is, the above processes may be applied with slight modifications to even the largest scale fishes, and to the sharks and saw-fishes. Such large subjects as the jewfish require strong iron rods for standards, and the skin may either be mounted over a manikin, made of excelsior tied down upon a central beam, or it may be stuffed with soft straw, which, considering the great thickness of the skin and scales, is quite satisfactory.

MOUNTING FISH MEDALLIONS.--A fish with but one side mounted and exhibited may be called a fish medallion. It may lie flat in a table-case, or be screwed to the back of an upright case, or it may even be set up on standards fastened to it at the back. As a specimen, either to prepare or exhibit, it has its advantages, and I will briefly describe my process.