12 
WARD’S NATURAL SCIENCE BULLETIN. 
TAXIDERMY. 
Fifteen Commandments for the Taxidermist. 
Applying to Mammals, 
1. Clean every skin thoroughly and pare it 
down thin. 
2. Clean thoroughly the leg bones and skull. 
3. Sew up all holes, from the inside, neatly 
and strongly. 
4. Choose leg wires or irons which are fully 
strong enough. 
5. Anoint the inside of the skin with arsenical 
soap. 
6. Do not stuff the legs round like Indian 
clubs. 
7. Do not stuff the body round like a sausage. 
8. Do not stuff the animal full of hard lumps 
like a bag of nuts, but 
9. Stuff smoothly. 
10. Do not get the back line twisted. 
11. Give the animal its hips and shoulders. 
12. Do not make either body or neck too long. 
13. Do not make the eyes bulge out of their 
sockets as they usually do in stuffed animals, but 
never in living ones. 
14. Watch every animal carefully while it is 
drying, and see that all the soft parts dry in posi- 
tion. 
15. Don't paint the mouth and tongue a bright 
crimson or blood red, for nature never does. 
W. T. H. 
Hints About Making Bird Skins. 
Skin the head close down to the base of the 
beak, especially in front of the eyes. Otherwise 
the feathers may come out when the skin is re- 
laxed for mounting, and even if they do not, who- 
ever mounts the bird will find it necessary to 
separate the skin from the skull in order not to 
leave a ridge of feathers marking the boundary 
between the skinned and unskinned portions. 
Always leave in all but the head of the humerus 
in a good-sized bird. Never on any account de- 
tach the secondaries from the ulna in birds of the 
size of the Red-shouldered Hawk and upwards. 
True, the bird may never be mounted, but very 
likely, too, he may, and to do good work on a 
large bird the secondaries must be attached to the 
bone. Especially is this the case where the bird 
is to have the wings spread. You may clean the 
roots of the feathers and sew them carefully to 
the ulna, but you can not get them as solid as they 
were, while to give them the even spacing and 
regular spread that they have in nature is quite 
out of the question. You can remove the muscles 
and tendons by making a cut on the under side 
of the wing from the elbow to the wrist, and the 
taxidermist who mounts your skins will set you 
down as one of the few who know how to make 
up a large skin properly. Take out the tendon 
back of the leg in long-legged birds of prey and 
waders, thereby rendering it possible for a leg to 
be wired readily, to say nothing of the fact that 
it is a great aid to keeping the scutellae of the 
tarsus intact. To do this make an incision back of 
the heel, i.e. , tibio-tarsal joint, and a second in the 
fleshy part of the foot. Sever the tendon at the 
heelf get an awl under it at the cut in the foot 
and pull it down. Remove the part contained in 
the tibial portion from above when you skin the 
leg. 
Remove blood stains. Grease and dirt can be 
removed, but blood hard dried upon feathers is 
almost impossible to take off. Warm water and 
sugar will do something towards it, but not 
much. 
Do not “bung out ” a bird’s eyes by putting 
too much cotton in the orbits. Be particularly 
careful about this in Hawks, who have deep set 
eyes, which should be pressed inward rather than 
distended. 
Get off as much fat as possible from the inside 
of a skin; otherwise it will be very apt to crack 
when it comes to be mounted. 
Don’t be afraid of opening a bird too high up 
on the breast. If you ever mounted half-a-dozen 
dry skins you will know why. In the majority 
of skins the cut is too short for ready manipula- 
CUSTOM WORK IN TAXIDERMY. 
PRICES FOR MOUNTING SKINS. 
AMERICAN MAMMALS. FOREIGN MAMMALS. 
Moose —male, 
- 
$115 
Rhinoceros, 
$250 
Ditto— female, 
- 
100 
Bactriau Camel, 150 to 175 
Bison, “ Buffalo,” 
125 
Dromedary, - 
125 to 150 
Elk— male, 
- 
100 
Giraffe— 15or 16f t.high,175 
Ditto— female, 
- 
80 
Ditto- 9 or 10 ft. high, 125 
Black-tailed Deer- 
-male, 70 
Eland, 
- 90 
Ditto— female, 
- 
60 
Koodoo, 
80 
Caribou, 
- 
75 
Nylghau, - 
- 75 
Virginia Deer— male, 
60 
Bubale, 
75 
Ditto— female, 
- 
50 
Lion, 
- 70 to 90 
Mountain Sheep— male 
, 75 
Tiger, 
70 to 90 
Ditto— female, 
- 
60 
Leopard, - 
- 30 to 50 
Prong-horn Antelope, 
55 
Ocelot, - 
15 
Grizzly Bear, 
- 
80 
Walrus, 
100 to 175 
Black Bear, 
- 
50 
Sea Lion, 
75 to 100 
Panther, . 
- 
60 
Seal, - 
- 20 to 45 
Lynx; Wildcat, 
- 
18 
Otter, 
12 
Wolf, - 
- 
30 
Great Ant Eater, - 35 
Coyote; Prairie'Wolf, 
20 
Small “ “ 
13 
Fox, - 
- 
15 
Sloth, - 
- 8 to 15 
Otter. 
- 
15 
Armadillo, 
8 to 15 
Raccoon, 
- 
14 
Great Kangaroo, 30 to 50 
Badger, 
- 
13 
Derby’s “ 
18 
Beaver, 
- 
16 
Koala. 
- 16 
Jack Rabbit, 
- 
8 
Wombat, 
14 
Grey Rabbit, 
- 
6 
Phalanger, 
- - 12 
Woodchuck, 
- 
6 
Baboon, 
20 
Skunk, - - - 
- 
8 
Howling Monkey, - 15 
Sable, 
- 
7 
Green “ 
12 
Opossum, 
7 
Marmozet “ 
- 6 
Fisher, 
- 
8 
Lemur, 
8 to 14 
Mink. - 
- 
6 
Capybara, 
- 20 to 35 
Muskrat, - 
- 
5 
Paca, 
10 
Prairie Dog, 
- 
5 
Rousette Bat, 
6 
Weasel, 
- 
3 
Porpoise, 
15 to 30 
Grey Squirrel, 
- 
3 
PRICES FOR MOUNTING HEADS. 
Heads of mammals are mounted in the highest 
style of the art at the prices given below, with- 
out shields : 
Bison; “Buffalo,” - - $25 to 30 
Moose, - - - - 25 to 30 
Elk, - - - - 20 to 25 
Caribou, - - - - 16 to 20 
Mountain Sheep, 14 
Deer, - - - - 12 
Antelope, 12 
A massive Black Walnut Shield, with moulded 
edge, will be furnished for Bison and Moose for 
$5; for Elk, Caribou and Mountain Sheep, $4; 
for Deer and Antelope, $2.50. 
The prices noted above are for dry skins of 
average preservation, with the skulls. If a skin 
is badly cut or torn, lacks patches of hair (which 
must be replaced), or is without abskull, the price 
will necessarily be more than that given. If, on 
the other hand, it be a fresh skin, it will be less 
than these rates. 
Parties sending skins to be mounted are earnestly 
requested to first examine the same carefully, in 
order to be themselves aware of the exact, state of the 
specimen as to tears, bare spots, loose hair, etc. It 
sometimes happens that a skin is supposed by the 
owner to be a good one, when close inspection 
would show him that it is really poor. 
For all further information on this subject, 
address 
PROF. HENRY A. WARD, 
2 College Avenue, 
Rochester, N. Y. 
tion of the bird in mounting, and it is necessary 
to prolong.it. Now the skin on the edge of the 
old cut will, be shrunken and thickened, and a 
stitch taken in it holds and does not tear out; but 
in the new cut the edges are thin and weak, and 
a thread pulls easily through, thereby causing 
great annoyance to the individual who is at work 
thereon. 
The above notes cover some of the most annoy- 
ing mistakes that are made by collectors, and as 
observations made upon the mounting of about 
four thousand dried skins ought to teach one 
what should be done and what left undone, we 
trust they may not be without some influence. 
F. A. L. 
How to Soften Dry Bird Skins. 
As usual with all processes in taxidermy, there 
are various ways in which a dried bird skin may 
be relaxed and made ready to mount, but I will 
describe the one I consider the simplest, easiest 
and most effective. 
1. For Small Birds. — Open the skin and re- 
move the filling from the body, neck and head. 
Tear some old cotton cloth into strips from an 
inch to two inches in width, wet them thorough- 
ly in warm water and wrap them round the leg 
and foot until it is covered with several thick- 
nesses of the wet cloth, quite to the ends of 
the toes. Lift up the wing and put two or 
three thicknesses of wet cloth round the joint, 
and also between the wing and the body." Put 
some wet cotton or small rags inside the skin, 
wrap the whole skin completely in several thick- 
nesses of cloth and lay it aside. If the bird is 
not larger than a robin, the skin will be soft 
enough to mount in about twelve to fourteen hours. 
2. For Large Birds. — Under this heading it is 
necessary to place nearly all birds above the 
size of the robin, for the reason that the legs, 
being large and thick in comparison with the 
skin of the body, require extra treatment The 
legs of some birds require several days’ soaking, 
and were the skin of the body relaxed for the 
same length of time it would macerate and the 
feathers fall off. The legs of large birds must, 
therefore, be started first in the relaxing process. 
Take, for example, the skin of a pheasant: 
cover the nails and beak with wax, if the skin is 
an old one, or else they will flake off; wrap the 
feet and legs with wet cloths as described above, 
and let the skin lie without other wrapping for 
one day. At the end of this time the joints can 
be bent somewhat, and they should be manipu- 
lated until they bend easily. When they will do 
this, put wet cloths round the joints of the 
wings — in the body, neck and head, and wrap 
the whole skin in a wet cloth. At the end of the 
second day the entire skin will be soft. The 
next step is to scrape all the hard parts of the 
skin and manipulate it until it is as soft as when 
fresh. 
This process applies, with slight modifications, 
to all large bird skins, but, of course, the larger 
the bird, the longer it will take to relax. Some- 
times the wings require soaking half as long as 
the legs in very large birds, but care must be 
taken not to soak any feathered parts too long or 
the feathers are liable to drop out and cause 
serious trouble. 
By the above process, skins may be softened 
and made ready to mount according to their 
size, about as follows: Wren to robin, in twelve 
to fourteen hours; ruffed grouse, two days; great 
blue heron, three days; bald eagle, four days; 
condor, five days; ostrich, six to eight days. 
Skins which are but a few months old will soften 
in about half the time they would require, were 
they five years old, and if properly made in the 
first place will make as handsome mounted speci- 
mens as fresh skins. W. T. H. 
Recipe for Luting for Alcohol Jars, Etc. 
— Soak say two ounces of common gelatine (glue) 
all night in any quantity of water ; then pour off 
the water and* dissolve the swollen gelatine by 
heat; dissolve, say one-quarter ounce of bichrom- 
ate of potash in about an ounce of hot water, and 
mix the solution with the dissolved gelatine. Ap- 
ply hot to the place requiring luting, and leave 
(24 hours, if possible,) exposed to the sun. 
