METHODS IN THE ART OF TAXIDERMY. 



71 



the tongue. The muscles of the lower mandible and around the skull 

 must be cut away. Now take out the brain. Do not cut the whole 

 back of the skull off in order to get at the brain, as I have seen some 

 taxidermists do; but make an opening at the base of the skull extend- 

 ing over into the roof of the mouth, exactly as we have it pictured in 

 Figs. 8 and 9, Plate X. Scoop out the brain with your brain-spoon or 

 knife, and clean the head all over in a thorough and general manner. 

 Give it a heavy coat all over with arsenical paste or arsenical soap ; 

 fill the eye-sockets loosely with balls of clean, white cotton, and the 

 skin is ready to be returned. Before you do this, however, while the 

 skin is lying before you, wrong side out, clean all the particles of flesh 

 and fat from it and poison the skin all over in the most thorough man- 

 ner. The returning of the skin back over the skull is well illustrated 

 in Plate XI. Let me caution the beginner that he will find some diffi- 

 culty in performing this operation the first two or three times, espec- 

 ially if he is in haste to do it. Take your time by all means with the 

 first birds, and you will soon learn the knack of returning the skin 

 over the skull. Do not imagine that you can poke the skull straight 

 through the neck-skin without some careful manipulation. Work the 

 skin over gradually, and whenever it becomes rolled up on top of the 

 skull or elsewhere work on the opposite side until the folded portion 

 will clear itself, and suddenly it will pass through and the skin will 

 once more be right side out as seen in Plate XII. The arsenical paste 

 or soap will here be of great assistance in aiding the skin to slip easily 

 over the skull. The skin now being turned right side out, the feathers 

 may be very much disarranged. Take hold of the bill, adjust the 

 feathers with your fingers and spring forceps, and assist them to fall 

 back in their natural position. Insert the blunt end of a darning 

 needle in the eye-hole and rub it along under the skin above the skull 

 (Plate XII), and the skin and feathers will fall back to their natural 

 places. This little procedure, so clearly portrayed in our illustration, 

 is of the greatest importance in adjusting the skin and feathers of a 

 bird's head. You must now with a needle point pluck out the cotton 

 in the eye-sockets to the natural fullness of the eyes, but do not make 

 them bulge out. ]\Iake the circle of the eyelids perfectly round, adjust 

 the feathers of the neck carefully, and if all has been done according 

 to directions our robin skin lies before us ready to be mounted as it 

 appears in Plate XIII, Fig. 1. 



Mounting Birds. — As we have the robin skinned, we shall now 

 proceed to mount it. The carcass of the bird is lying before you 

 (Plate XIII, Fig, 2). Cut off three pieces of annealed wire No. 18 



