196 TAXIDERMY AND ZOOLOGICAL COLLECTING. 



' Wounded Heron," which was awarded a specialty medal as 

 being 1 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 increas- 

 ing 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 

 vertebrae, 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 joints willy-nilly. Your best plan is to clean the neck 

 vertebrae 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 vertebrae, 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 rea- 

 son 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 not 



