156 PRACTICAL TAXIDERMY. 



very cautiously, lest you should break anything ; soon one piece 

 will come off, whicli will materially assist your labour ; take time 

 and have patience, and you will be rewarded by seeing a perfect 

 nK)del of tlie stag's head come out of the mould in due course. I 

 have said perfect, but I mean perfect so far as this system allows 

 of perfection. If you hold the model up to the light, or look down 

 upon it from above, you will see, if your eye is sufficiently educated, 

 that, although it correctly represents the hair even, and all 

 prominent features, yet that the weight of the plaster has 

 perhaps caused one eye to drop lower than the other, or twisted 

 the mouth aside, and given a different expression altogether 

 to that needed. What is to be done then? Nothing but 

 altering the model, by cutting and scraping it, until both sides 

 are even, casting again from the corrected model when necessary, 

 that is to say, when it is desired to get or to keep a very good 

 one for reference. Remember that the model is a little larger 

 than you require it, so that the hair marks, &c., must be 

 trimmed away to lessen it. Shaving the hair all away from the 

 head, leaving only the naked skin, has been recommended 

 as a preliminary to casting; but this, of course, destroys one 

 specimen entirely, that others of the same size may be 

 mounted from the model made from the shaved head. Skinning 

 the head first, and casting from the flesh, does not help the 

 amateur, as so many muscles and other characteristic parts 

 are cut away, that a model taken in this manner is often worse 

 than useless. What, then, is our way out of this difficulty? 

 Nothing but educating the hand and eye to the point of being 

 able to take a dead head, and, by knowledge of its living 

 anatomy, to model it in clay so truthfully as to far surpass any 

 other process whatever. I can, unfortunately, give no directions 

 for doing this. I can merely say, in the words of manj- 

 unpractical "guide books" to art: "Take a board, some 

 tools, a well-kneaded lump of clay; place the head before you 

 in strong light, and turn out a lifelike representation of it: 

 wi-inkles, muscles, and all — in clay." To me, this is now far 

 the easiest thing to do, but I do not forget the time when I 

 used perhaps a ton of plaster in experiments, and wasted lots 

 more, and learned many little arts before I could model 

 correctly. Let this be a grain of comfort to the learner, that. 



