32 METHODS IN THE ART OF TAXIDERMY. 



putty of the required size, place it in the eye above the cotton, and the 

 artificial eye of the proper size and color over it; adjust the eyelids 

 carefully and the bird is ready for the final touches. The next pro- 

 cedure in the mounting of our robin is wrapping it with thread. Do 

 this with the soft thread from the bobbin, which you can get at the 

 cotton mills, called copse, or No. 40 thread. Wind it carefully where- 

 ever there are any feathers out of order, or wherever there seems to be 

 a break in the symmetrical outline of the mounted bird.' Look at it 

 from the head, tail and both sides ; make the outline easy and graceful, 

 and wind it so that the feathers will lie like they do in life — alike on 

 both sides. Now cut two pieces of pasteboard for a tail band ; adjust 

 the tail feathers and pin the two pieces of pasteboard across the tail 

 as shown in Plate XV, Fig. 3. These will rest on the wire used for a 

 tail support. Your specimen is now ready to put away until thor- 

 oughly dry. Instead of using the strips of card-board to hold the tail 

 feathers in place many taxidermists sharpen and sandpaper smoothly 

 a piece of wire of the proper size and pass it through each quill at the 

 base of the tail. The feathers are then arranged to suit the attitude 

 of the specimen. This can be done on the smallest birds. 



Another Method of Mounting Birds. — We shall here depart from 

 the regular mode of skinning and mounting birds, and use another 

 method having advantages which the usual procedure does not obtain. 

 Some will perhaps adopt this method altogether and use it in prefer- 

 ence to the former which we have already fully described and illustrated. 

 We shall term it the " breast-cut" method for, instead of making the 



1. Winding Birds' FeatlierS. — Piof. J. S. Wiiey, in a pamphlet entitled The Preparation ami Prese}-z>ation 

 of Objects of Natural History, published in 1855, dwells at length on the arrangement and winding of birds' 

 leathers. He advices the use ot three hooked wires along the back and belly and the supporting nei k-wirc to be 

 liooked at the top of the head. Mr. Frederic S. Webster, in a paper read before the members of the Society 

 of American Taxidermists in IbSl, advocates a similar method. 



Our Plate XVI represents two figures of a hawk ; the upper one is supposed to be properly wound with the 

 aid of hooked wires; the lower, with simply sharpened wires stuck in it here and there, illustrates a bird badly 

 wound, the threads being too tightly drawn, making the symmetry or outline of the whole bird very imperfect. 

 The object of the hooked wires, as Professor Wiley says, " is to wind the thread over them and bring sufficient 

 pressure down on the feathers that stubbornly stick up and to hold them in place till the skin is dry ; to miss those 

 that lie perfectly natural or need little or no pressure at all." Every taxidermist has his own method of winding 

 birds' feathers and he varies his modes of procedure in every case according to circumstances — to suit 

 the condition and attitude of the specimen under treatment. In my first efforts I employed the as- 

 sistance of hooked wires to bring my birds into shape, but now 1 seldom have to resort to them. To 

 obtain symmetry in our specimens a general and careful wrapping is necessary. The feathers that require pres- 

 sure to hold them down are usually those that have sprung up on account of some irregularity in the shape of the 

 false body, or too much filling, or because of some misplacement or disarrangement of the wing or leg bones. 

 Take the utmost care in making the artificial bod). Do not make it too large ; do not make an elevation where 

 there should be a hollow ; anchor the legs in the proper place in the body ; in the smaller birds sew or tie the 

 wings in the proper place so that the feathers will not stick up at the shoulders, which is usually such a trouble- 

 some place for the amateur to work over. Study the bird and note how the feathers cover the bare places on the 

 body and you will soon know the way they must be adjusted in order to obtain the smoothness that nature gave 

 them. In this a careful study of Plate VI 1 1 may assist yr>u. 



