222 M'ETHODS IN THE ART OF TAXIDERMY. 



The first thing to do after you have removed the skin from an 

 animal and carefully washed all blood stains out is, to set about and 

 prepare it, so that you can successfully mount it. To do this you must 

 spare no labor. In order to give any form you may desire to the skin 

 while molding it down to the clay on your model, you must cut it as 

 thin as it is possible to make it. Fasten the skin with hair side down on 

 your workbench and pare it down thin. This is half the battle in hand- 

 ling the skin on the manikin. Moreover, the thinning down of a skin 

 lessens its shrinking powers, for you cut the fibres, which of itself is 

 worth all the time and labor you may bestow upon it. Go at it 

 with the scraper, and if you cannot make an impression on it in that 

 position, place it over a beam and work at it with your draw-knife or 

 the keen-edged currier's knife. You will have to do most of the cut- 

 ting on the skin of the head with sharp scissors and sharp knives ; and 

 as this is the most difficult part of the animal to prepare, you must not 

 slight one inch of it. Make it so thin that you can pinch any portion 

 of it on the wet clay and it will retain that particular shape ; make it so 

 pliable that you can have perfect control over its shape. But I have 

 already warned the beginner under the head of " Relaxing Dry Skins of 

 Mammals," page 204, of the necessity of having the skins of quadru- 

 peds well thinned, and any further remarks on the subject would be 

 superfluous. We shall place in the 15° strength salt and alum pickle 

 the skin of the greyhound, which we have prepared exactly as we 

 have described above, and begin to build the model on which we shall 

 mount the skin. 



Building of the Manikin. — The illustrations in Plates LII and 

 LIII, which figure the building of the manikin for the greyhound, are 

 so clearly laid off that a description of them seems unnecessary. The 

 framework of the horse in Plate LVI is of similar construction. There 

 are many procedures, however, which cannot be illustrated, and must be 

 described in order to successfully carry out our plan. There are varia- 

 tions in the methods of constructing manikins in certain cases — as in 

 the figures of the greyhound in Plate LIV ; also that of the horse in 

 Plates LVII, LVIII and LIX, and that of the elephant in Plate LV. 

 All of these variations will be given in foot-notes, as has been previ- 

 ously done with the birds and the small quadrupeds. 



The first thing to be done after you have placed the skin in pickle 

 is to make a center board, which is accomplished by making an out- 

 line of the contour of the animal's body from the measurements and 

 sketches you have taken. This can be made on the floor or on a large 

 piece of paper. Now, on an inch thick pine board mark oft' a portion 



