Taxidermy and Zoological Collecting Part 12

To secure perfect stability and permanence in a mounted specimen, observe conscientiously the following principles in its construction:

1. Pare every skin down thin, so that its shrinking power will be reduced to a minimum. This will prevent its seams from opening.

2. Poison with the utmost thoroughness, so that even though the specimen should chance to stand unprotected for years where insect pests are thickest, they can find nothing to feed upon in its hair or feathers.

3. Use heavy supporting irons or wires, as heavy as the specimen will accommodate without sacrificing the form and position of legs and feet. The fault of using the lightest possible supports is entirely too common, and is so thoroughly reprehensible in a taxidermist that it becomes a vice.

4. Make the mechanical structure of every specimen (_e.g._, the fastening together of the body, limbs, head, neck, and tail), so firm that the rigidity of all is complete. It is then, and only then, in your power to place any member of the body in a desirable att.i.tude and have it remain fixed.

5. Every portion of the skin should rest upon a _firm, smooth_ surface of clay, excelsior, straw, or tow, according to circ.u.mstances. If there are lumps under the skin, they will appear soon after it is dry, and destroy its smoothness. If there are hollows, the result will be the same.

6. The larger the specimen the thicker is the skin, and consequently the harder and more unyielding should be the material it rests upon. Do not make a manikin with hoop iron and burlap, and a little loose filling between that and the skin, for specimens so mounted nearly always come to grief. If you stuff a skin with straw, excelsior, or tow, pack the filling in a solid ma.s.s, for with the lapse of time all such materials are bound to shrink, no matter how hard you make them at first. The shrinkage of straw is often remarkable and highly disastrous.

ATt.i.tUDE.--On this subject no fixed rules can be offered. To one fact, however, which should always be borne in mind by the preparator, I must call special attention, and that is as follows: Animals of all kinds, even in a state of nature, and entirely of their own volition, often a.s.sume att.i.tudes that are highly ungraceful, unpleasing to the eye, and anything but fairly representative of the creature's form and habits. This being the case, do not make the mistake of concluding that because you have seen a particular animal a.s.sume a particular att.i.tude, it is "natural," and therefore you can do no better than to reproduce that att.i.tude in the specimen you are mounting. No, a thousand times no. This mistake will lead to the reproduction of many an ugly att.i.tude, even though like life itself.

Every animal is capable of a.s.suming scores of different att.i.tudes, and from all these you should _choose the one which is most strikingly characteristic of the subject_, most truly representative, and which does the animal the same sort of justice that you seek at the hands of the artist when you go to have your own picture taken. On such occasions you do not lounge ungracefully, nor "stand stoop-shouldered," nor look listless; you stand erect, at your full height, and look your very best. Make your animal do the same.

For your own picture you do not a.s.sume a violent and tragic att.i.tude, nor anything strained. You stand or sit at ease, quietly but intently regarding something in particular; or your att.i.tude may with equal propriety represent a moment of rest in the course of some quiet action.

Pose your mounted specimens according to the same principles, and the results will be most satisfactory to all. The choice of an att.i.tude depends wholly upon your artistic instincts, "upon your eye," so to speak. Choose that one which is most graceful or grand, and is at the same time truly characteristic of the subject. To my mind, the att.i.tude taken by an animal when startled by visible or suspected danger, is the one _par excellence_ in which it appears at its best when mounted. Under such conditions the animal always stands fully erect, head aloft, and with every sense keenly on the alert. The next best att.i.tude is that which represents an animal quietly walking or climbing, according to its habits and modes of progression.

The subject of groups and grouping will be considered in full later on in this work.

PROPORTIONS.--On this point a single observation will be sufficient. The taxidermist often receives, from the zoological gardens and menageries, specimens that are very thin in flesh. In mounting an animal, do not let your knowledge of anatomy run away with your judgment, art, and even nature itself, by producing a tiger, panther, zebra, or buffalo with all its ribs showing, and its scapula, pelvis, and vertebral column all standing out in bold relief. Unless the individuals of a given species are always scrawny, I pray you, for the sake of truth and justice, do not make your solitary representative of that species look like a candidate for special honors at a bone-yard.

Let me a.s.sure you, on the honor of a hunter, that animals in a state of nature are nearly always well fed and plump-looking, and show very few bones. It is easy to make ribs on a clay-covered manikin, but do not do it on a wild animal, unless you deliberately intend to produce a starveling.

According to its nature, make every animal look well-fed and in good condition, _but not fat_. It seldom happens that a wild animal in a state of nature grows really fat, but it is still more seldom that one looks under-fed and poor. If fatness is a special characteristic of a species, then fat let it be, but scrawny never.

Above all things, avoid in your birds and quadrupeds the half-filled body which makes the subject look as if it had been eviscerated. The abdomen is always convex, not concave.

THE USES OF CLAY AS A FILLING MATERIAL.--The value of clay in the mounting of mammals, reptiles, and fishes can hardly be overestimated. Previous to 1880 its use among the taxidermists of my acquaintance was unknown, and when its value was discovered and put to general use by the writer, in the year mentioned, many of my rivals predicted all manner of evil from it.

They declared it would destroy skins, go to dust within them, become soft mud in damp weather, crack, etc. I persisted in its use, disproving all evil prognostications, and now its general use really marks a new era in American taxidermy. By means of this common and cheap material it is not only possible but easy to mount a horse, a seal, a hairless dog, a turtle, snake, fish, or any other animal, with absolute accuracy in every detail of form and size. Not only is this true, but, so far as I can discover, there is no other material than clay with which these results can be accomplished. For covering manikins, coating the skulls of large animals, and for filling in the nose, mouth, eyes, and ears, it is everything that could be desired. With it a stretched skin,

"A world too wide for his shrunk shank,"

can be worked together on the clay-covered manikin, and reduced in size until it fits without the slightest visible wrinkle, or any cutting out such as used to be necessary by the old methods.

To prepare clay for use, take the clean, worked chunks of soft potter's clay (which costs about two cents per pound, and should be quite free from sand and grit), put the right quant.i.ty in a pail, and pour a little water upon it. With the hands knead it until the water is taken up, and it becomes as soft as dough. It will, of course, be quite sticky, and in this state is altogether too soft to use except to cover a large manikin, in which case it must be soft enough to spread easily with the hand. For ordinary use, however, chop up finely, with the hatchet, some clean hemp tow of long fibre, and mix it thoroughly with the clay, which can be done only with the hand. This makes the clay more stiff, about like soft putty, and of the proper consistency for filling into feet, cheeks, eyes, mouth, nose, etc. If the clay is too soft, you will have difficulty in making it retain the proper form under the skin. If it is too stiff, it b.a.l.l.s up, and you can not work it along under the skin from one part to another. When you learn to make it of just the right consistency it works to perfection, no matter where you put it, and will forever retain the form your fingers give it by pressure from without. Elsewhere will be given more detailed advice in regard to the various uses of clay.

COLORING.--The time was when American curators held it sacrilege to paint the soft parts of birds, and the hairless portions of certain mammals. For my part, I have always fought that idea unconditionally, in season and out of season, and I am glad to say that within the last eight years it has been utterly abandoned. Clearly, it is better to reproduce the colors of soft parts as accurately as one can, rather than let them remain in a colorless, dry, and mummified condition, hideous to the eye and meaningless to the understanding. By all means let us color everything that has color in life, though the heavens fall. Ascertain in some way what the color should be (this can often be done by reference to books with colored plates), then paint accordingly. Paint with turpentine and oil, rather than with oil alone, which leaves an unnatural gloss. You can tone down any oil color, however, by stippling it with a stipple brush dipped in a pan of dry color, or plaster Paris. The taxidermist who can paint the exposed parts of his specimens accurately and artistically has a very powerful advantage over all those who can not. This subject will also receive special attention elsewhere.

GENERAL FINISH.--In all work on specimens, cultivate a delicate and artistic touch, and then leave its impress upon everything you do. Do not leave a specimen looking as if a coal heaver had finished it. Work at it, and keep on working at it until it is perfect; and then go back to it the next day, and work at it some more! There is no inferno too deep or too hot for a slovenly, slatternly taxidermist. The fault with such workers usually lies not so much in their lack of skill as in their lack of patience and the dogged stick-to-itiveness that conquers all difficulties, no matter whether they come singly, in platoons, or by divisions. Delicacy is just as essential in the production of good work as originality and strength.

CHAPTER XV.

MOUNTING SMALL MAMMALS.

In attempting to give the beginner a fair start in the general work of mounting small mammals of all sorts, from mice up to small foxes, I will describe in detail the entire process of mounting a typical specimen, which in this instance will be a squirrel. This will embody all the general principles involved, and after having laid this foundation we will proceed to consider exceptional cases, and describe the manner in which they must be met. The exceptional cases are bats, rabbits, young animals of the smaller species, and a few others.

We will a.s.sume that the subject before us is either a "dry skin" which has been fully relaxed, sc.r.a.ped, and rendered perfectly pliable and elastic, or else "a fresh skin," _i.e._, one which has been preserved in our antiseptic solution (the salt-and-alum bath) or possibly in alcohol, and has therefore never been dried. For the sake of the beginner's courage, which should never be taken out of him at the very first onset by putting him on a dry skin of doubtful quality, we will take the skin of a fine, old, gray squirrel (_Sciurus carolinensis_) which lies in the bath waiting to be immortalized--or something else.

It may easily happen that for good and sufficient reasons the beginner has no salt-and-alum bath, and can not prepare one. In that event the skin can be mounted immediately after it is taken off the animal, only it is necessary to apply to it _after_ the a.r.s.enical soap, as directed hereafter, a copious quant.i.ty of powdered alum. If you have no a.r.s.enical soap, then as you proceed with the mounting moisten the inside of the skin with water, and rub on powdered alum and a.r.s.enic, mixed in equal parts, and be sure that the skin is everywhere coated with it eventually. This leaves the fur dry and clean, and will save you the trouble of drying and dressing it.

On taking our squirrel skin from the bath to mount it we find its texture is firm, and it is somewhat shrunken in size, so that when it is filled out it will not stretch all out of proportion. If either in haste or carelessness you have left a layer of flesh upon the skin, pare it off until the inside of the skin is quite clean. If any holes have been cut by bullets or knives, sew then up from the inside with a strong linen thread and a No. 3 glover's needle--three-cornered.

Now for the wires. Measure the leg bones from the sole of the foot to the end of the thigh-bone, add three inches for what the wire must project beyond the sole of the foot, five inches more at the other end, and cut a No. 15 annealed iron wire[8] of the length thus obtained, for each hind leg. The length of the wires for the forelegs is obtained in the same way.

Thus for our squirrel, the wires for the hind legs must be fourteen inches long, and for the forelegs twelve.

Cut another No. 15 wire twice the length from the back of the head to the root of the tail, and this will be the body wire eighteen inches long. The tail wire must be smaller, No. 17, long enough to reach from the tip of the tail to the centre of the body--seventeen inches. Straighten all these wires carefully, lay them together on the table, and remember the purpose of each. If they are rusty, rub them with sand paper. File one end of the tail wire to a tapering point, for the tip of our squirrel's tail is very slender.

We are now ready to make one of the legs, and will begin with one of the hind legs. Take one of the two longest wires, pa.s.s one end of it through the slit in the skin at the bottom of the foot, let it project three inches beyond the sole of the foot, and up into the skin of the leg. Now bend the wire until it fits closely along the under side of the leg bones as seen in the accompanying ill.u.s.tration. Tie it firmly with linen thread to the bones of the foot, to the _tibia_ and the _femur_, as seen in the accompanying ill.u.s.tration.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 25.--Leg-making and Wiring.]

Now take fine, clean tow, of good long fibre, and, beginning at the foot, proceed to wrap it around the leg bones, smoothly and evenly, to replace the muscles which have been cut away. The lower part of the leg is flat on the inside and round on the outside, almost bare of flesh at the ankle.

Remember always that the flesh on the "calf" of the leg, and the forearm, lies _behind_ the bones, swelling out toward the back and the inside of the limb, and in front the skin lies upon the bone itself. Observe this, and build up the muscles accordingly. The thigh is broad and much flattened, rounded on the outside only, as you must have noticed when you skinned it and cut off the flesh, and the knee-pan is prominent. To make the leg this shape, first wind some tow around the thigh bone, then make up a little roll of tow a little larger than your forefinger, place it along the under side of the thigh and wind it fast there with tow. By a judicious continuation of this process, you can make the thigh of the proper width and flatness both above and below the bone. At no point is a squirrel's thigh more than three-fourths of an inch thick, and the calf, the arm, and the forearm are even less. By reference to the tracing made of the animal in the flesh, you will be able to tell the width of the legs at all points and correct your work all the way along.

In all thin-haired animals the tendon of the heel must be made by drilling a hole through the end of the heel-bone, pa.s.sing a small wire through for half its length, then twisting the wire together half-way up to the knee.

Wind a little fine tow around this wire, gradually increasing the quant.i.ty from the heel upward until the false tendon is complete, and the upper end is wound in with the tow which forms the lower part of the thigh. In small mammals which have long, thick hair, as our squirrel for example, it is not necessary to make the tendon, as it does not show. Remember there is no flesh on the upper part of the foot-bones, but considerable underneath.

It is not best to make the legs extremely hard, or they will be difficult to bend, but at the same time the tow must not be put on in a loose, slovenly manner. Avoid making the legs too large; the opposite extreme is the lesser evil of the two.

When the leg is finished, anoint the skin of that leg with a.r.s.enical soap, rub either a little wet clay or thick soap over the tow leg so that it will slip into the skin easily, then turn the skin up over it and adjust it from the foot up. If the leg does not fit, turn the skin back and alter its shape until it does fit perfectly. This done satisfactorily, insert a little clay or finely chopped tow in the bottom of the foot, bend the wire so that it leaves the foot _at a right angle_, sew up the cut, and you are ready to proceed in like manner with the three remaining legs. Be sure to make both legs of each pair precisely alike if you wish to have a healthy-looking animal when finished.

Having made all the legs, the next thing is the tail. Take some of your finest tow in your right hand, the tail wire in your left, begin at the pointed end, and by turning the wire constantly from left to right, let it wind up the tow which runs between your right thumb and finger. Make the tail of a regular taper, perfectly smooth, and not too large. Try it in the skin occasionally to insure accuracy. If the first one is a failure, discard it and make another. When at last you have what is required, anoint the inside of the tail skin with a.r.s.enical soap, slip the false tail into its place, and if the tail has been slit open, sew it up neatly all the way along, commencing at the tip.

Now punch a small hole in the back of the skull a little above the occipital opening, pa.s.s the end of the body wire through it, force the end through into the nasal cavity and on out at the end of the nose. Let the end of the wire also pa.s.s through one of the nostrils of the skin for about two inches. Now put some soft clay on the sides of the skull and jaw to replace the muscles which have been cut away, and fill the orbits with the same material. Anoint the skin of the head and neck with the a.r.s.enical soap, turn it back over the skull, and when the skull is once more in its proper position in the skin, which can best be determined by noticing whether the eye opening comes over the centre of the orbit, drive a tack over each eye through the skin and into the bone.

Another tack at the top of the head will also do good service in holding the skull in its place while the grand struggle with the body is going on, for the head is the last thing finished. Life is too short and s.p.a.ce too valuable to allow me to explain fully why all these things must be done, but if you neglect any of these simple directions you will very soon find out why they were given.

The legs and tail are wired and made, the skull is in its place, with one end of the body wire pa.s.sing through it, and we are now ready to wire all the parts of the animal together. The skin lies on the clean table before us, right side out, with the legs in the same position as when we drew the outline. Bend the inner ends of the foreleg wires back from the head of the humerus at an obtuse angle, and let them cross each other like the limbs of an X, as seen in the accompanying figure. At the point where they cross each other, turn a little ring in the body wire, six inches from the end, just large enough for the two wires to pa.s.s through easily. For this purpose you will find a pair of round-nosed pliers convenient. Pa.s.s the end of each foreleg wire through the ring, and let them cross again, with the wire of the left leg underneath the other.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 26.--Wiring Together.]

Now refer to your outline, measure the distance between the extremities of the toes, and it will tell you exactly how to adjust the leg wires so as to get the right distance between the two ends of the humeri, or, in other words, the shoulders. The wire between the head of the humerus and the ring represents the scapula, and, if rightly measured, will enable us later on to pose the forelegs with ease and success.

Now, with the round-nosed pliers in the left hand, grasp the three wires firmly at the ring, lay hold of the two leg wires with the flat-nosed pliers and give two complete turns to the right, twisting the wires together as tightly as possible. Bend up the body wire to one of the leg wires, and, leaving out the other, give these two a couple of turns. Take the other leg wire and body wire and give them a twist. If the legs are now _solidly_ together, it is enough, but if they are not, this twisting process must be continued until they are perfectly firm. No looseness, if you please.

This done, straighten out the body wire once more, arrange the skin as before, according to your outlines, and you will soon see that the ring for the hind legs must be turned about five inches below the first one. The ends of the hind-leg wires are bent slightly forward (toward the head) from the ends of the femora, and also cross each other in the ring. After getting the hind legs the right distance apart, give the wires two turns as before, then bend the free end of the body wire straight up and over until it points toward the head. Proceed with it precisely as with the other leg wires until the hind legs are immovably fixed on it. Now give the free ends of the wires each a turn around the middle of the body wire and thus fasten all together, forming a backbone of twisted iron wire.

The end of the tail wire must pa.s.s under the hind-leg wires (as the skin lies on its back), and after giving a turn or two around the wire backbone, tie it fast with strong twine. The tail must be as firmly fixed upon the body wire as though it was soldered there. This done, wrap a goodly quant.i.ty of tow tightly and smoothly around the wire backbone, so that the numerous ends of wire, and the irregularities in the ma.s.s of twisted wire, will not cause trouble when we come to fill the body. Now that you no longer need to put your hands inside the skin, anoint it most thoroughly with the soap, from the back of the head to the base of the tail. While the skin is absorbing the soap, take a hatchet and chop up finely a quant.i.ty of coa.r.s.e tow. With your longest forceps, cover the inside of the skin with a layer of cut tow, placing it between the wires and the skin. It is highly important to have a good thick cushion of it next to the skin at the shoulders, hips, and along the back.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 26_a._--The Legs Wired Together.]

This is the time to give the animal the att.i.tude it is to have when finished. All the members are now completely under control, and we can give the animal any pose we wish. Bend up each leg at a right angle to its present position, making the bend abruptly at the head of each femur, and thus leave between them the same distance that separated them when they joined the pelvis in life. Likewise bend up the foreleg, by making nearly a right angle in the leg wire at the head of each humerus, and leave the proper s.p.a.ce between the shoulders. With the play that is given to the forelegs, by means of the distance left between the shoulder point and the ring, we are able to adjust the forelegs with the greatest freedom, to move each shoulder either up or down, and increase or lessen the distance between them at will.