MOUNTING LARGE BIRDS. 



195 



be 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 paste- 

 board. 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 noth- 

 ing of laying the plumage, 

 is a difficult and delicate 

 matter, and the chances are 

 that he who takes the great- 

 est pains will produce the 

 best bird. 



MAKING THE NECK OF A 

 HERON. Ordinarily the an- 

 atomy of a bird is well con- 

 cealed 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 vertebras often show very plainly, and the wind- 

 pipe 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 



FIG. 53. Cast of the Neck and Windpipe of a 

 Heron. 



