254 TAXIDERMY AND ZOOLOGICAL COLLECTING. 



ural. Nature never joins two contrasting- colors without a 

 blending together and softening of the two tones where they 

 touch each other. If it be red and brown, the red merges a 

 little way into the brown, imperceptibly, perhaps, and the line 

 of demarcation between the two is thus softened, and natural- 

 ized, if you please. Therefore, in your painting have no hard 

 lines where your colors meet, but always blend adjoining 1 colors 

 together by passing a small brush over the line where they 

 meet. 



STRENGTH OF TONES. The colors that Nature puts on an ani- 

 mal are not hard, crude, and staring 1 , like bright red in the 

 mouth of a mounted quadruped, but they are always in harmony 

 ivith the other parts of the object. A bird may have yellow legs, 

 but if it does, you may be sure they will not be a bright, glossy, 

 chrome yellow, so gaudy as to instantly catch the eye. The 

 chances are, they will be Naples yellow, with only a tinge of 

 chrome. Learn to soften tints so they will not .be staring, 

 gaudy, and offensive to the eye. Examine the tongue of a live 

 tiger or lion, and you will notice its color is a pale pink. 



In all painting, study the harmony of colors, the strength of tones, 

 and the blending of tints. Do not get your colors too gaudy, too 

 sharply contrasted, nor laid on roughly ; but paint evenly, and >'/> 

 all your colors in perfect harmony. 



PAINTING THE SKIN OF THINLY HAIEED MAMMALS. It very often 

 happens that the skin of a thin-haired mammal. has a decided 

 color of its own, which must be imparted to it by painting. 

 This is particularly the case with our next of kin the apes and 

 monkeys. The orang utan has a chocolate-colored skin, except 

 the old males, in which it is black; the mona monkey has a 

 bluish skin, and the faces of nearly all primates require paint- 

 ing. To paint a skin through thin hair, use oil colors mixed 

 with turpentine, and made so thin that the mixture runs over 

 the skin as soon as it touches it, like water. By separating the 

 hair, it is often possible to get the paint on the skin without 

 saturating the hair save at its roots ; but if the turpentine color 

 does get on the hair it must be sponged off with benzine. Do 

 not mix your colors with oil, or you will get into serious trouble : 

 but the oil in which the tube color has been ground will b? just 

 sufficient to give a natural tone to the skin. If the color when 



