"And this," ejaculated Herr Dr. Hartmann, clasping his hands in horror as Charlie, with head and shoulders bound and bandaged, but happy as a king, was deposited at the door—"and this is called sport!"
[THE RESTORATION OF "TIP."]
BY J. PARMLY PARET.
Tip was a vicious young elephant, and during his brief life of twenty-three years he killed several of his keepers. His last act of violence came near causing the death of Snyder, the attendant who had charge of him at the Central Park Zoo, and as a result he now stands upon a wooden pedestal in New York's Museum of Natural History, where all may look at the brute which caused so much trouble for the circus people who owned him. For his attack upon Snyder, nearly two years ago, the Park Commissioners ordered his execution, and he was killed with powerful drugs given to him in his food. The process of mounting and stuffing his hide, to be exhibited at the museum, was very interesting, as the accompanying series of pictures will show.
1.—THE FIRST BOARD AND THE WOODEN BONES.
The preparation of the elephant's tough skin and the cleaning of his bones took nearly a year before the actual work of mounting was started. As it is intended to mount Tip's skeleton separately, exact reproductions of his skull and a few of the other large bones were carved in wood, to be used in modelling the form on which the hide was to be mounted. All of the flesh, of course, was destroyed, and in its place the museum workmen built up a dummy of his body, or manikin, as they call it, from measurements and photographs taken of him before his death. Building this lay figure and fitting the skin to it took nearly six weeks' work, and the stuffed elephant then stood over two months, to allow the hide to stretch and dry on its new body before the specimen was ready to be shown. It has been on exhibition only a few weeks now.
