Taxidermy and Zoological Collecting / A Complete Handbook for the Amateur Taxidermist, Collector, Osteologist, Museum-Builder, Sportsman, and Traveller

by William T. Hornaday; W. J. Holland

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 brass 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 brass 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 arsenical soap, or if you have not that, with a plentiful sprinkling of powdered arsenic.

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 quantity 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 quantity 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 brass 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 quantities 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 glass 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 shellac 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 glass eye is smaller than the opening, which is very often the case, set it in fine papier-maché, which must be nicely modeled around the glass, and afterward coated with shellac, and painted.