Fig. 52.—The Winding of the Bird.
The best method of winding ever known is that developed and practised by Mr. F.S. Webster, whose wonderful skill in the treatment of birds is already widely known. His birds are marvels of smoothness and symmetry, and I take great pleasure in describing his method of winding as the best known. First make six hook-wires by filing six pieces of wire, each two inches long, to a sharp point at one end, and bending the other with the pliers in the form of a double hook. (See Fig. 52.) Insert three of these in a line along the middle of the back, and two along the middle of the breast, as seen in the cut. The wing-wires are not to be cut off, but left sticking out for half an inch. The bird is now divided into equal halves, and there are three wing-wires on each side, so that it will not be very difficult to wind both sides alike.
Now take a spool of white thread, No. 40, fasten the end to the hook-wire on the top of the back; take the base of the pedestal in the left hand and proceed to wind down the feathers. By means of the hook-wires you can wind from point to point at will, so as to bind down the feathers where they lie too high, and skip them entirely where they lie low enough. Get the general outline of the bird first, and apply the thread with a light and skilful touch, so that it will not make creases in the bird. A little practice will enable one to wind a bird with gratifying success.
The next thing is to spread the feathers of the tail evenly, and pin them between two strips of thin card-board placed crosswise to hold the feathers in position until they dry.
Lastly, adjust the toes so that they grasp the perch properly, and set the specimen away to dry where it will not be touched. In about two or three weeks, when it is thoroughly dry, cut the threads off with a pair of scissors, pull out the hook-wires, cut off the projecting ends of the wing-wires close down to the wing, and cut off the wire at the top of the head close down into the feathers.
Mix a little varnish and turpentine together in equal parts, and with a paint-brush paint the feet and bill in case they happen to require it. Clean the eyes and rub them until they shine. You can perch the specimen now permanently on the artificial twig, turned T perch, or natural twig, or whatever else you have had in mind. In doing this, clinch the leg-wires together underneath the perch, and cut off the ends so that no portion of the wire will show. Beneat in everything, and study to make the bird look alive.
Do not be discouraged if your first bird is a dead failure, nor even if your first dozen birds are fit only for immediate destruction. If you get discouraged because your first attempt at anything is not a complete success, you are not fit to succeed. Better never begin than stop short of success. If you have a love for taxidermy, and the patience and perseverance to back it up, you are bound to succeed.
Afterall that has been said in regard to mounting smallbirds, and relaxing and cleaning dry bird skins, there remains but little to add on the subject of bird-mounting, and that little relates to large birds. For all birds, up to the emu and ostrich, the principles remain about the same as those illustrated in the mounting of a robin. Moreover, the mounting of birds is now so generally understood it is unnecessary to dwell at great length on this subject.
Professor L.L. Dyche has called my attention to the great desirability of taking a series of measurements of every large bird before it is skinned, and another series of the skinned body, as a check on possible errors in making the false body and in mounting. The idea is a good one, and the following are the measurements that should be taken:
Before Skinning.—Total length; distance from angle of wing at the carpal joint to the eye; distance from the end of the closed wing to the tip of the tail; distance from the base of the middle toe to the carpal joint of the wing.
Measurements of the Skinned Carcass.—Length of the body; length of the neck; circumference of the body around the breast; circumference around the abdomen.
The notes should also state whether the body and the neck are respectively round or flat.
The False Body.—In starting out to make a body for a large bird, particularly one with a long neck, take a piece of wood about the size of a large ear of corn, and much the same shape, through one end of which pass one end of the neck-wire and firmly staple it down. The purpose of this is to give the firmest attachment possible for the neck. The false body is thenmade by firmly winding successive layers or bunches of excelsior or straw upon this wooden core, and binding each successive layer down with fine twine from start to finish, so that the finished body shall be firm enough. If the false body is not made hard enough, the leg-wires can not be firmly fastened, and the bird will "wabble."
If you have the fleshy body before you, or even the measurements of it, it will be easy enough to reproduce its form and size. It is desirable to copy the form of the natural body as closely as possible, which in many cases necessitates the use of a long needle to sew through and through it, in reproducing certain hollows and corresponding elevations. Professor Dyche lays great stress upon this point, and always makes the false body of a bird with such care and attention to every detail of form that when the skin is put over it it fits perfectly, the feathers fall into position and lie properly, no extra filling being necessary anywhere save at the tail; and, what is more, he considers that it is unnecessary to wind down the plumage with thread. The most life-like snowy owl I have ever seen is one which Professor Dyche mounted for me as a practical demonstration of his method, the virtue of which was thus handsomely proven. The skin was the same as a fresh one, having been made less than a year, and the excelsior body was made to fit it without the aid of measurements. As the result of repeated ocular demonstration, I am convinced that Professor Dyche's method of making every body with extreme care, as to form and details, is well worthy of universal adoption.
The necessity of removing the tendons from the legs of all large birds has already been mentioned. When this has been done, the wiring of the leg is an easy matter, for the wire will take the place of the tendon so perfectly that there will be no outward sign of its presence. Use as large leg-wires as you can without disfiguring the leg of the bird.
When any animal is mounted in a walking attitude, the foot which is represented in the act of leaving the ground mustalwayshave its centre well elevated, and only the toes touching. This being the case, surely no intelligent taxidermist will ever be guilty of so unpardonable an offence against the eye as to run the supporting-iron straight down from the ball of the foot to the pedestal, with a ghastly section of it exposed to view. Nomatter how you manage it, the iron must follow the bones of the foot until it reaches the toes, and then it can be bent down to a perpendicular line and passed through the pedestal,always out of sight.
PLATE XIII.Mounted Bird, with Interior Structure Exposed.
In all but the largest birds, the leg-wires are fastened in the body in precisely the same way as described and illustrated in the previous chapter, except that it requires stouter pliers and more strength to bend them and clinch them firmly in the body. In inserting the leg-wires in the artificial body, be sure to enter them about themiddleof the body, on each side, and not near the tail, as nearly all beginners are prone to do. This is by all odds the commonest and worst fault in mounted birds that fall short of perfection. It arises from the fact that the beginner makes the mistake of entering the leg-wires at the same point where the bird's humerus joins the pelvis, which is too far back by just one-third of the length of the entire body! Thehumerusis not represented on your wire at all, and the wire should enter the bodyprecisely where the knee-joint comes in the living bird. The flesh and bone of the thigh is made up (or should be, at least) on the artificial body, not on your leg-wire. Lay out a dead bird in a walking attitude, or study a skeleton (see Fig. 70), and see where the knee-joint comes; then you will never again be in danger of spoiling a bird by making its legs come out from under its tail.
In mounting large birds, the sizes of the wires I have used were as follows: Great horned owl, No. 8 or 9; bald eagle, No. 7 or 8; peacock, No. 7; great blue heron, No. 6; sandhill crane, No. 5.
An ostrich or emu requires a manikin constructed on the same principles as that built for the tiger, except that each leg-rod should have two iron squares instead of one. The upper extremity of the leg-rod is clamped tightly to one square, with two nuts, as usual; but in addition to this there should be a second square with a hole in its short arm large enough for the smooth rod to slip through, and this should be screwed to the body-board as low down as the anatomy of the bird will allow. The object of this second iron is to prevent the bipedal specimen from swaying and leaning over, as it would otherwise be very apt to do.
Inasmuch as the legs of an ostrich or emu always require to be cut open and completely skinned, the manikin method is perfectly adapted to their wants. If the skin is so shrunken that it requires vigorous stretching, its body must be stuffed with straw after the neck and legs have been made and joined to a centre-board, precisely as directed for long-haired mammals above medium size. I may also remark in this connection that I have seen both the complete skin and skeleton of a large ostrich preserved and mounted to stand side by side, but I pitied the operator when he had to make a full set of bones for the legs and feet, and a wooden skull with the horny shell of the beak fastened upon it. At one stage of the proceedings the outlook for the skin seemed anything but promising, and on the whole I would not advise anyone save an expert to attempt a similar task.
Mounting Birds with Wings Spread.—In the first place, each wing must have a wire large enough to adequately support it. This should be straight, bright, well-oiled, and filed sharp at both ends. One end is to be inserted inside the skin, passed along next to the wing-bones as far as the carpal joint, from thence it is forced on as far as possible between the skin and the under surface of the metacarpal bones until it emerges from the feathers not far from the end of the fleshy portion of the wing. The wing must be so straight that the wire can be slipped through it freely backward and forward. It must next be passed through the artificial body at the point where the upper end of the humerus is attached to the coracoid in the complete skeleton, and very firmly clinched in the same way as described for the leg-wires. Then lay the bird upon its back, place the wing exactly in position, bend the wing-wires so they will fit snugly against the wing-bones, and tie them firmly down. After that, the middle joint of each wing is to be poisoned, stuffed with fine tow, and sewn up neatly. Of course the wings can not be given their correct elevation and pose until the bird is placed firmly upon its temporary perch, unless it is to be represented as flying.
Now is the time to properly dispose of the feet. If the talons are to be grasping any kind of prey, the object must be placed at once, before the feet begin to dry. If the bird is tobe in full flight, they must be drawn up, clinched, and almost concealed in the feathers. To keep the feathers of a spread wing in place while the specimen is drying, thrust a long, sharpened wire into the body under the wing, and another on top, bend both until they conform to the curve of the wing, twist their outer ends together, and then slip under each wire a long, narrow strip of pasteboard. Such a specimen requires constant watching lest something get awry by accident, and dry so. The winding of a bird with its wings spread, to say nothing of laying the plumage, is a difficult and delicate matter, and the chances are that he who takes the greatest pains will produce the best bird.
Fig. 53.—Cast of the Neck and Windpipe of a Heron.
Making the Neck of a Heron.—Ordinarily the anatomy of a bird is well concealed by its feathers, but to this rule the neck of a heron is a marked exception. In this remarkable member there is room for the most ambitious operator to show his skill. The neck is very long, very thin and flat, the joints of the vertebræ often show very plainly, and the windpipe has a way of shifting over the sides of the neck in a most free-and-easy way. (See Fig. 53.) If you wish to mount a bird that will show your skill to the best advantage, by all means choose a heron, and mount him in a stooping posture, with his head thrown back, in the act of spearing a fish with his sharp beak.
One of the artistic triumphs of the New York exhibition of the Society of American Taxidermists was Mr. F.S. Webster's"Wounded Heron," which was awarded a specialty medal as being one of the best pieces in the entire exhibition. It was presented by Mr. Webster to the National Museum, for the Society's exhibit, and is represented in Plate XVI.
Ordinarily you can make a good neck for a heron by taking two wires of suitable length, winding fine tow very smoothly and evenly around each one until it has attained very nearly the required thickness of the neck, then putting the two together and winding a thin, even layer of fine, soft tow around both. This doubles the width of the neck, without materially increasing its thickness. The necks of some herons are so excessively wide and thin that it requires three tow-wrapped wires wound together thus to give the necessary width. All this winding should be done quite firmly, and when finished, if the neck is of the right size, it should be wrapped with spool cotton from end to end to make it keep its shape. One of the neck-wires should be thrust through the skull, but the end of the other should be bent down, and (if the beak is to be closed) passed out of the throat, into the mouth, one-third of the way to the tip of the beak.
If, however, you wish to produce a prize bird and challenge criticism, then make a neck which will show the joints of the vertebræ, and show them plainly and strikingly. Now there may be a dozen different ways in which that could be done, but the best is to make the neck over a hard skeleton that will show its jointswilly-nilly. Your best plan is to clean the neck vertebræ without disjointing them, tie your neck-wire firmly underneath them, wrap with fine tow to replace the flesh, bind down with thread, and cover all at the last moment with clay. The windpipe is easily reproduced by wrapping fine tow around a small annealed wire, and then sewing it in its place on the neck. If you have not the cervical vertebræ, the next best thing is to make them roughly and quickly out of wood, wire them together, and use as you would the real bones. The reason why this is necessary to success is that it is very difficult to make a wire bend in angles instead of curves after it has been wrapped with tow and inserted in the neck of the bird.
Setting the Eyes.—On this point I have always been at war with most of my taxidermic friends. They insist that it is notbest to insert the eyes in a bird as soon as it is finished otherwise, but leave the bird to dry without them. Afterward, they insert wet cotton, soften the eyelids, and then insert the clay backing and the eyes. They claim that this is necessary to prevent the skin from being drawn away from the eye by shrinkage in the general drying.
I hold that it is best to set the eyes at once, before the bird dries, in order to secure the greatest degree of elasticity in shaping the eyelids, and thereby have a more perfect mastery of the situation. But having seen my friends secure as good results by their method as I do by mine, I naturally conclude that it is only a matter of personal preference, and either way is good enough.
I shallnever forget how vainly I sought, when a lonesomeand isolated amateur, to find somewhere in print some useful information about how to remove grease, dirt, and blood-stains from the plumage of birds. I remember well my disgust and anger at the makers of the so-called "complete" manuals of taxidermy that left me groping in Egyptian darkness on that subject, and most others also; and I registered a solemn vow that should I ever write on taxidermy I would do my best to afford some practical information on cleaning the plumage of birds.
As has been previously stated, the time to clean the plumage of a bird is while you are making up the fresh skin (Chapter VI.), before the skin has been laid away to dry, before the blood dries and imparts apermanentstain (to white feathers, at least), and before the oil has had a chance to ooze out into the feathers to gather dirt, and presently form a nasty, yellow oil-cake upon the skin. In cleaning the skin of a fat or oily bird, scrape all the grease from the inside of the skin, and absorb it with corn meal or plaster Paris. Scrape the skin until it looks as if the feathers are about to fall out, until no more oil is raised, and then you may call it clean. When you have done this, you need not fear that any oil will ever exude upon the feathers.
Fresh Specimens.—If a freshly killed bird has blood upon its plumage, separate the bloody feathers from the others, lift them on your fingers, and with warm water and a sponge gently sponge them off. Give the blood a little time to soften, and when the feathers are as clean as you can get them with water, wipe them as dry as you can, then sponge them over with clear spirits of turpentine or benzine, and absorb this with plasterParis. The manner of managing plaster Paris will be described in detail in another paragraph.
Very often the plumage of a freshly killed swan, gull, or duck, becomes so covered with dirt, blood, and grease by the time it reaches the taxidermist that it is a sight to behold. Never mind if it is, you can make it as good as new, in every respect, so far as cleanliness is concerned. The thing to do is to skin the bird, and clean the skin before either mounting it or making it up as a skin. The cleaning is often made easier, however, by hastily filling the loose skin with excelsior or tow, to give a firm foundation to work upon when cleaning the plumage.
If you have no turpentine, as will probably happen to you many a time when you least expect it, take some warm water, as warm as you can bear your hand in, rub some castile soap in it, and with a sponge, or a soft cotton cloth, wash the soiled feathers. Do not scrub them as you would a greasy floor, and utterly destroy the perfect set of the feathers, but sponge them with the grain, as far as possible, treating them as a compact layer. Now,if you have turpentine, wipe the feathers as dry as you can, and give them a sponging with that, for they will come out better from the plaster Paris than otherwise. When the plaster is put upon feathers that are wet with water, it acts too quickly in its drying, and the feathers are often dried before they have had time to become fluffy as in life. But if you have no turpentine, you must finish without it. Whichever liquid you use, at the finish fill the feathers full of plaster Paris, and almost immediately lift the bird and beat it gently to knock out the saturated plaster. That done, put on more plaster, filling the feathers full of it down to their very roots, and presently whip that out also. By the time you have made the third application, the feathers are almost dry, and the plaster falls out almost dry also. Now is your time to whip the feathers with a supple switch, or a light filler of stiff wire, to make each bedraggled feather fluff up at the base of its shaft, and spread its web for all it is worth. This treatment is also vitally necessary to knock the plaster out of the plumage. Work the feathers with your long forceps, lifting them up a bunch at a time and letting them fall back into place. By this time the plaster flies out in a cloud of white dust, and the whipping of the feathersmust be kept up without intermission until the plaster isall out. If any plaster remains in the feathers, you may count with certainty that it will always be sifting out upon the pedestal, and, what is even worse, if the plumage is black, or dark-colored, it will impart to it a gray and dusty appearance.
Caution.—Remember that if you leave the first application of plaster, or even the second, too long in the feathers it will "set" or harden there, and make you wish you were dead before you get it out.
Dry Skins.—The hardest subjects to deal with are old, dry skins. While fresh, fat is merely so much clean oil smeared on the feathers. An old, dry duck, goose, swan, penguin, auk, or albatross skin is liable to have the feathers of the breast and abdomen all caked together in a solid mass of rancid, yellow grease, to which time has added a quantity of museum dirt. In mounting one of the charming specimens of this too numerous class, it is not always safe to clean the feathers before inserting the body. There is danger that the skin will go to pieces. For this, and other reasons, the skin should be scraped clean inside, poisoned, furnished with a body, and sewn up before you attempt to clean the feathers.
When feathers are badly caked with old, dry grease, it is an excellent plan to apply a jet of steam to the afflicted region, which quickly warms and moistens the grease, and allows the turpentine to cut it in less than half the time it would otherwise require. There is nothing that starts dry grease as quickly as a little well-directed steam; but steam is a powerful shrinking agency, and it must be used with judgment.
Usually an old skin is so dirty that it requires to be "plastered" all over. If you have no steam, attack the greasy portions first with warm water (but no soap), to warm up the grease and soften it. Time and patience are both necessary. Next, wipe off the water, and with a wad of cotton cloth, tow, or cotton batting, dip from your dish of turpentine, and apply it as a wash upon the feathers, always rubbing with the grain, of course. When, after repeated applications, you see that the turpentine has dissolved the grease to quite an extent, go rapidly over the remainder of the bird, then lay it down upon a sheet of heavy paper, upon its back, and cover it completely withplaster Paris. It takes two or three quarts to do this usually, and for a swan it requires a pailful.
As soon as the plaster has had time to absorb the greasy turpentine, which it does in about a minute, lift the bird from its burial-place, and holding it head upward hit it several sharp blows with a light stick to knock the plaster out of the feathers. Devote from three to five minutes to this, then examine the feathers and see whether they are perfectly clean. Most likely they are not, if it is a case of old grease, and a repetition of the dose is necessary. Start again with your wash of turpentine and do precisely as before (withoutthe use of any water). If this does not bring the feathers out clean and white from roots to tips, then give it a third going over, with unabated vigor and thoroughness. The third time is usually "the charm," even with the worst cases. This time the plaster must be thoroughly beaten out of the feathers, even if takes you an hour to accomplish it.
All this is rather disagreeable work. Of course you will put on old clothes and get out doors to windward of your bird while beating it, so that the plaster will fly off upon some other fellow. Soft feathers may be handled more carelessly than the stiffer sorts. Of course great care must be taken to not separate the web of the tail and wing feathers, nor to break the shafts of even the small ones. Beware getting any of the body feathers twisted during this operation, or they will not lie down where they belong.
Benzine can be used instead of turpentine in cleaning plumage, but it is too volatile, and evaporates too quickly to render the best service.
It is practically useless to attempt to remove clotted blood from the feathers of old dry skins. Even if by persistent effort the blood itself is removed, it leaves a lasting stain upon the feathers, and they are also permanently awry. The universal custom with taxidermists in such case is to obey the (paraphrased) scriptural injunction—if a feather offend thee, pluck it out. If this course leaves a vacancy in the plumage, steal a perfect feather from some suitable portion of the bird's body, and glue it fast in the place of the missing one. Fortunately, however, collectors have about ceased to make up skins to dry with blood upon them, and there is not much trouble to apprehend hereafter from that source.
Ophidia:The Serpents.—There are several methods of mountingsnakes, but only one that I can recommend. Such processes as ramming a rubber-like snake skin full of sawdust, or cotton, or tow, are to be mentioned only to be condemned. In my opinion, the only proper way to mount a serpent is to make a manikin of tow, carefully wound on a wire and afterward shaped with thread, and cover it with clay at the finish. It is necessary to attach small wires to the body-wire at given intervals, so that they can be passed down through the pedestal, and afford a means by which a finished specimen may be drawn down and made to lie naturally.
A manikin for a large snake, like an anaconda or python, is best made of excelsior, and its exact form secured by sewing through it with a needle. In the field notes printed in Chapter III. something may be learned of the form of the python.
If a snake is "stuffed," it stretches the scales apart most unnaturally, and never looks like life. For this reason, the clay-covered manikin is necessary, in order that any excess of skin may be modeled down upon it, and the scales be made to form an unbroken covering.
Lacertilia:The Lizards.—With the exception of the iguana, the gila monster, mastigure, and a few others, the lizards are so small and slender, and have tails so tapering out into thin air that they are altogether too small to be mounted by the ordinary methods of taxidermy. The finest method ever devised for the preservation and display of small reptiles and batrachians is that adopted by the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, Mass. Each specimen is preserved in clear spirits in a jar by itself, and instead of being dropped in head first tosink or swim, and tie itself into a bow-knot if it can, the reptile is placed (in the flesh) on a thin, rectangular slab of plaster Paris or cement, of the tint best suited to the display of the specimen. The object is placed in a life-like attitude and held in place by threads which pass through holes in the slab and tie the feet down securely. The accompanying illustration (Fig. 54), drawn from a specimen, and the following description, both of which have been kindly furnished me by Mr. Samuel Garman, Curator of Reptiles, Museum of Comparative Zoology, will enable any intelligent preparator to adopt this admirable method:
Fig. 54.—Method of Mounting Alcoholic Reptiles at the Museum of Comparative Zoology.
"It was in 1875 we began to mount the reptiles and batrachians of the Museum of Comparative Zoology on tablets, in alcohol. Before that date they had been stuffed and dried, a method which proved rather unsatisfactory, especially so in regard to color, and the shrivelling of digits and tails. However varied at first, the appearance soon became uniform and dusty. Mounting in the alcohol does away with the most serious objections; we can give the specimens life-like attitudes, or arrange them in groups as if playing, courting, or fighting; and the liquid heightens their beauty, as the water does that of the pebble at the seashore, while ravages of insects are entirely out of the question.
"The tablets are made of plaster Paris, or if a harder one withfiner finish is desired, of cement mixed with water and spread on a glass plate to set. Holes are bored through them wherever necessary to fasten the specimen, which is simply tied on. With the tints used in fresco painting they are colored to suit. Experiments now under way convince me there is less fading on plates of certain colors than on the white ones. For black tablets, common slate is good. A mixture of plaster and cement makes a fine quality."
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 aHatteria 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, passing the inner ends through a rather small centre board, bending them down to the wood, and fastening with staples. Ofcourse 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 passed 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 attitude, 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 attitude.
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 horny-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 horny 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 pass 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 "machéd," 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 shell, and with head and flippers non-retractile,—the terrapins, soft-shelled 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-shell 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 class 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,"
"We conquered, but Bozzaris fell,"
vowing that neither gold nor glory (neither of which is yielded bySphargis coriacea) should ever again tempt us to "strike oil" in that manner. The soft and gelatinous shell of that monster dripped clear oil for three months, and actually yielded severalgallons.
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 shell bridge that unites the upper with the under shell 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 illustrated 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 shell from collapsing while drying. The divided portions of the shell must then be joined and wired together firmly with soft brass wires passed 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.
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 surpassed 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 assured 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-likeRhinobatiwere 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 class—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 tougheningthe 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 scrape 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 anal 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 brass standards with nothing at all in the way of special materials and tools. You must have an assortment of hard brass wire, Nos. 3 to 10, a hack-saw, some brass rosettes, a small die for cutting threads on brass wire, and taps of corresponding sizes for cutting threads in the brass 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 outlinea,b,crepresents 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 atd,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 seemsto 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 finsmust 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 pinsthroughthe 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 puttyprovided 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.
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, andthe 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.