12 BIRD-PRESERVING. 



BIRD-MOUNTING-. 



WE will suppose that a proficiency, from practice, lias 

 been attained in the art of bird -preserving, according 

 to the instructions given. The proficiency in pre- 

 serving may apply only to the preservation and the 

 form, great and necessary things, no doubt, as pre- 

 liminaries ; but, like matter without manner, of little 

 avail alone. For attitude, I would say, as has been 

 said to many a young artist, Go to Nature, and there 

 you will find an original in perfection. Would you 

 make a willow-wren look like a willow-wren, watch 

 him as he there hangs upon the weeping birch, or 

 stands on a bough peering in quest of food. Each 

 bird has its own manner, and if you cannot hit the 

 manner, or make your stuffed skin so far amenable as 

 to assume the attitude, it is either ill-stuffed, or you 

 want the requisite knowledge of that which you should 

 copy. Young hands commonly suppose that a bird 

 should stand bolt upright, with the legs almost per- 

 pendicular, or at right angles to the perch. This is a 

 great mistake, and never to be found in Nature. Do 

 we stand rigid, like a foot-soldier on drill ? Does not 

 a bird, as well as ourselves, accommodate itself to the 

 thing upon which it rests ? Assuredly it does ; for 

 birds do not, as a young bird-stuffer endeavours to do, 

 find always a perch to rest upon in thdr plane of the 

 horizon. It therefore follows that, as he keeps him- 

 self upright, his legs must accommodate themselves to 



