STAINING GUT PROPERLY. 95 



your tongue much, it will burn the feathers a 

 little. 



To dye feathers various shades of red, amber, 

 and brown. First boil them in the alum mordant 

 already mentioned ; secondly, boil them in an 

 infusion of fustick strong enough to bring them 

 to a bright yellow, (about a tablespoonful to a 

 pint of water ;) then boil them in a dye of 

 madder, peach wood, or Brazil wood. To set the 

 colour, put a few drops of dyer's spirit, (i. e. 

 nitrate of tin combined with a small quantity of 

 salt,) which may be had from a silk-dyer, into the 

 last-mentioned dye. 



To stain gut the colour of weeds, water, fyc. 

 Make an infusion of onion coatings as before 

 directed, and when quite cold put the gut into 

 it, and let it remain until the hue becomes as 

 dark as required. A strong infusion of green 

 tea will dye gut a useful colour. So will warmed 

 writing ink : the gut to be steeped in it a few 

 minutes, and immediately afterwards to be washed 

 clean in spring water. You will obtain another 

 good colour by steeping gut for three or four 

 minutes in a pint of boiling water in which you 

 have put a teaspoonful of alum, a bit of logwood 

 the size of a hazel nut, and a piece of copperas 

 the size of a pea. To make your gut a water- 

 colour, take a teaspoonful of common red ink, add 

 to it as much soot, and about the third of a tea- 



