COLOUEING AND EESTOEATION OF DEIED SKIN. 209 



previously accurately copied into your note-book tlie colours of 

 the soft parts, you will begin by brusbing over tbe parts to be 

 coloured with, a very little turpentine. Next, heat in a pipkin, 

 or " patty-pan," some beeswax, into which a little common resin 

 has been powdered, just sufficient to harden the wax under the 

 point of brittleness ; apply this with ^ camel-hair brushes of 

 different sizes to the eyelids (the eye being in and fixed), the 

 superciliary ridge, the cere, the gape, and all over the bill, and 

 legs, and feet, regulating the thickness of the wax thiis — ver^j 

 thin over the bill and eyelids, a little thicker upon the cere, 

 ridge, and gape, and quite thick upon the legs and feet ; so 

 much so, indeed, in places on the latter, as to necessitate 

 carving up with tools to reproduce the underlying shrunken 

 scutes, &c. This, of course, is a delicate operation, involving 

 practice and artistic perception of form. Remove all super- 

 fluous wax by paring with curved awls of various sizes, and 

 rubbing down with rag wetted in turpentine. Some parts 

 of the legs may be treated with hot irons (large wires, old 

 awls, knives, &c.). When the wax is sufficiently cold, which 

 it will be in a quarter of an hour after finishing, commence 

 colouring, by using the colours direct from the tubes,* with as 

 little admixture of " turps " as possible. Note the different 

 tints — quite three shades of yellow upon the cere, four or five 

 upon the bill itself, and perhaps half-a-dozen upon the legs 

 and feet, and carefully put them on. Properly finished, your 

 eagle will — if correctly shaped — be quite life-like ; all the soft 

 parts now look full and fleshy, having lost that hard appearance 

 inseparaole from direct painting on the shrivelled integument 

 without the intervention of wax. 



The wattles and combs of gallinaceous birds, after being 

 washed with preservative (Formula No. 15, page 77), or, when 

 practicable, skinned out and filled, together with analogous pro- 

 cesses on the vultures, and also the pouches of pelicans, &c., may 

 be treated in like manner, the wax being thinly or thickly painted 

 as required. 



The inside of the mouths of mammals, their tongues, eyelids, 

 and noses, should be treated in a similar manner. 



* Winsor and Newton, Eowney, or Eoterson, are some of the best makers of these. 



