166 PEACTICAL TAXIDERMY. 



should be as a clay model^witliout liair — of tlie specimen, taken 

 in hand. Nothing now remains but to take the skin, properly 

 thinned down and prepared, and try it over the model, altering 

 the latter where it is too large or too small. Perhaps it may be 

 necessary to pull it over — commencing at the head — several times 

 before getting it quite right. When fairly satisfied with your 

 progress, commence stitching the skin up from the neck, adding 

 clay where wanted, noticing that, in the position you are now 

 working to, the neck will hang low, and rather fine in front, 

 between the fore limbs, and that the flanks will be tucked 

 up. Go on sewing up until you are at the point behind the 

 shoulders, including the fore limbs in this ; pad the skin at 

 the toes with clay, to replace the flesh previously cut away. 

 Leave this now, and go to the tail end ; bend the wire down, 

 and insert it in the hollow of the skin of the tail, and work 

 on the hind limbs, finishing as you go on, and sewing up to 

 the point between F and E. This leaves you the remainder 

 of the body to finish, and also gives you a chance to dispose 

 of any loose skin about that part. The clay and wire, being 

 both amenable to any alteration, can be beaten into shape 

 where required. Finally, sew up, and if your modelling is 

 correct all the remainder must of necessity be correct also. 



To keep the skin in position on the model, tack it down with 

 galvanised wire points, or by stitching it through in places, such 

 as occur in the neck and various parts of the limbs. These wires 

 can, of course, be removed, and all stitches cut and drawn away 

 when the specimen is dry, at which time the eyes can be inserted, 

 if not previously done. In all cases, however, the specimen must 

 be thoroughly dried before it can be finished off by modelling the 

 inside of the lips and palate with wax or cement (described in 

 Chapter XII) , or before the model tongue is inserted. 



The foregoing thus describes the method which may be adopted 

 to educate the tyro to a correct idea of the osteology of his 

 subject, and, by analogy, to the osteology and relation of parts 

 of many others. It is practicable only in the case of mammals 

 done from the flesh, and whose skeleton is not valuable. In this 

 system, as in all the following, the model head of any animal, 

 cast as described for the stag, may be substituted for the natural 

 skuU, unless the teeth, &c., are required to be shown. Model 



