Practical taxidermy : a manual of instruction to the amateur in collecting, preserving, and setting up natural history specimens of all kinds to which is added a chapter upon the pictorial arrangement of museums / by Montagu Browne.

  • Browne, Montagu.
Date:
[1884?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Practical taxidermy : a manual of instruction to the amateur in collecting, preserving, and setting up natural history specimens of all kinds to which is added a chapter upon the pictorial arrangement of museums / by Montagu Browne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    colours, used paper varnish when dry, with water-colours and varnished and painted, and painted and varnished the cast in oils, having used “mediums,” tempex-a painting, “secco” — yet I am not satisfied; there appears a want of softness and brilliancy; probably the electro-type or wax process I am now trying may give the desired effect. So disgusted was I at the seeming impossibility of getting “ tone ” on plaster, that I determined to try paper for the last cast or model; to this end I took lessons at a theatre in the art of “ making (paper) faces,” with the result that I now employ paper whenever practicable, and find it answer, from a 21b. perch to a 2cwt. skate. Two or three most valuable results accrue from the substitution of paper for plaster. First, extreme lightness combined with strength; and secondly, of course, excellence of detail and facility of colouring in either water or oil. For remarks upon the artistic mounting of fishes, see Chaptei’8 XII., XIII., and XIY. There are, I find, two excellent articles on fish-casting in “ Science Gossip for 1878,” to which I must refer my readers for further details. They agree to diffei’, however, in one important particular. One wi'iter says that plaster-work is as “cleanly as any cooking operation, and there is no reason why ladies should not engage in it”! The other wi'iter speaks of it as “ filthy,” and, really, I feel inclined to back his opinion; for having now used some tons of plaster, ranging in quantities from a few pounds to 3cwt. at a time, I must say that, of all the dia- bolical messes for getting into the hair or on the boots, and about a house or workshop, plaster is the worst. “ Matter in the wrong place,” ma foi ! you can’t keep it in the right. I see that Mr. Tayloi-, amongst other suggestions, advises the use of half glue and treacle (see Chapter XII.) to cast the first mould for groups of small fishes. If these glue-moulds were backed with plaster “ piece-moulds,” they might be useful for larger “ under- cut” specimens. Plaster moulds and casts, it must be remembered, are, when dried, about a quarter of their weight when wet, and the same bulk of dried (not dry) plaster is not half the weight of dried clay. A very scientific way of getting the correct shape of a fish for