Taxidermy and Zoological Collecting Part 20

The necessity of removing the tendons from the legs of all large birds has already been mentioned. When this has been done, the wiring of the leg is an easy matter, for the wire will take the place of the tendon so perfectly that there will be no outward sign of its presence. Use as large leg-wires as you can without disfiguring the leg of the bird.

When any animal is mounted in a walking att.i.tude, the foot which is represented in the act of leaving the ground must _always_ have its centre well elevated, and only the toes touching. This being the case, surely no intelligent taxidermist will ever be guilty of so unpardonable an offence against the eye as to run the supporting-iron straight down from the ball of the foot to the pedestal, with a ghastly section of it exposed to view.

No matter how you manage it, the iron must follow the bones of the foot until it reaches the toes, and then it can be bent down to a perpendicular line and pa.s.sed through the pedestal, _always out of sight_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XIII. MOUNTED BIRD, WITH INTERIOR STRUCTURE EXPOSED.]

In all but the largest birds, the leg-wires are fastened in the body in precisely the same way as described and ill.u.s.trated in the previous chapter, except that it requires stouter pliers and more strength to bend them and clinch them firmly in the body. In inserting the leg-wires in the artificial body, be sure to enter them about the _middle_ of the body, on each side, and not near the tail, as nearly all beginners are p.r.o.ne to do.

This is by all odds the commonest and worst fault in mounted birds that fall short of perfection. It arises from the fact that the beginner makes the mistake of entering the leg-wires at the same point where the bird's humerus joins the pelvis, which is too far back by just one-third of the length of the entire body! The _humerus_ is not represented on your wire at all, and the wire should enter the body _precisely where the knee-joint comes in the living bird_. The flesh and bone of the thigh is made up (or should be, at least) on the artificial body, not on your leg-wire. Lay out a dead bird in a walking att.i.tude, or study a skeleton (see Fig. 70), and see where the knee-joint comes; then you will never again be in danger of spoiling a bird by making its legs come out from under its tail.

In mounting large birds, the sizes of the wires I have used were as follows: Great horned owl, No. 8 or 9; bald eagle, No. 7 or 8; peac.o.c.k, No.

7; great blue heron, No. 6; sandhill crane, No. 5.

An ostrich or emu requires a manikin constructed on the same principles as that built for the tiger, except that each leg-rod should have two iron squares instead of one. The upper extremity of the leg-rod is clamped tightly to one square, with two nuts, as usual; but in addition to this there should be a second square with a hole in its short arm large enough for the smooth rod to slip through, and this should be screwed to the body-board as low down as the anatomy of the bird will allow. The object of this second iron is to prevent the bipedal specimen from swaying and leaning over, as it would otherwise be very apt to do.

Inasmuch as the legs of an ostrich or emu always require to be cut open and completely skinned, the manikin method is perfectly adapted to their wants.

If the skin is so shrunken that it requires vigorous stretching, its body must be stuffed with straw after the neck and legs have been made and joined to a centre-board, precisely as directed for long-haired mammals above medium size. I may also remark in this connection that I have seen both the complete skin and skeleton of a large ostrich preserved and mounted to stand side by side, but I pitied the operator when he had to make a full set of bones for the legs and feet, and a wooden skull with the h.o.r.n.y sh.e.l.l of the beak fastened upon it. At one stage of the proceedings the outlook for the skin seemed anything but promising, and on the whole I would not advise anyone save an expert to attempt a similar task.

MOUNTING BIRDS WITH WINGS SPREAD.--In the first place, each wing must have a wire large enough to adequately support it. This should be straight, bright, well-oiled, and filed sharp at both ends. One end is to be inserted inside the skin, pa.s.sed along next to the wing-bones as far as the carpal joint, from thence it is forced on as far as possible between the skin and the under surface of the metacarpal bones until it emerges from the feathers not far from the end of the fleshy portion of the wing. The wing must be so straight that the wire can be slipped through it freely backward and forward. It must next be pa.s.sed through the artificial body at the point where the upper end of the humerus is attached to the coracoid in the complete skeleton, and very firmly clinched in the same way as described for the leg-wires. Then lay the bird upon its back, place the wing exactly in position, bend the wing-wires so they will fit snugly against the wing-bones, and tie them firmly down. After that, the middle joint of each wing is to be poisoned, stuffed with fine tow, and sewn up neatly. Of course the wings can not be given their correct elevation and pose until the bird is placed firmly upon its temporary perch, unless it is to be represented as flying.

Now is the time to properly dispose of the feet. If the talons are to be grasping any kind of prey, the object must be placed at once, before the feet begin to dry. If the bird is to be in full flight, they must be drawn up, clinched, and almost concealed in the feathers. To keep the feathers of a spread wing in place while the specimen is drying, thrust a long, sharpened wire into the body under the wing, and another on top, bend both until they conform to the curve of the wing, twist their outer ends together, and then slip under each wire a long, narrow strip of pasteboard.

Such a specimen requires constant watching lest something get awry by accident, and dry so. The winding of a bird with its wings spread, to say nothing of laying the plumage, is a difficult and delicate matter, and the chances are that he who takes the greatest pains will produce the best bird.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 53.--Cast of the Neck and Windpipe of a Heron.]

MAKING THE NECK OF A HERON.--Ordinarily the anatomy of a bird is well concealed by its feathers, but to this rule the neck of a heron is a marked exception. In this remarkable member there is room for the most ambitious operator to show his skill. The neck is very long, very thin and flat, the joints of the vertebrae often show very plainly, and the windpipe has a way of shifting over the sides of the neck in a most free-and-easy way. (See Fig. 53.) If you wish to mount a bird that will show your skill to the best advantage, by all means choose a heron, and mount him in a stooping posture, with his head thrown back, in the act of spearing a fish with his sharp beak.

One of the artistic triumphs of the New York exhibition of the Society of American Taxidermists was Mr. F.S. Webster's "Wounded Heron," which was awarded a specialty medal as being one of the best pieces in the entire exhibition. It was presented by Mr. Webster to the National Museum, for the Society's exhibit, and is represented in Plate XVI.

Ordinarily you can make a good neck for a heron by taking two wires of suitable length, winding fine tow very smoothly and evenly around each one until it has attained very nearly the required thickness of the neck, then putting the two together and winding a thin, even layer of fine, soft tow around both. This doubles the width of the neck, without materially increasing its thickness. The necks of some herons are so excessively wide and thin that it requires three tow-wrapped wires wound together thus to give the necessary width. All this winding should be done quite firmly, and when finished, if the neck is of the right size, it should be wrapped with spool cotton from end to end to make it keep its shape. One of the neck-wires should be thrust through the skull, but the end of the other should be bent down, and (if the beak is to be closed) pa.s.sed out of the throat, into the mouth, one-third of the way to the tip of the beak.

If, however, you wish to produce a prize bird and challenge criticism, then make a neck which will show the joints of the vertebrae, and show them plainly and strikingly. Now there may be a dozen different ways in which that could be done, but the best is to make the neck over a hard skeleton that will show its joints _w.i.l.l.y-nilly_. Your best plan is to clean the neck vertebrae without disjointing them, tie your neck-wire firmly underneath them, wrap with fine tow to replace the flesh, bind down with thread, and cover all at the last moment with clay. The windpipe is easily reproduced by wrapping fine tow around a small annealed wire, and then sewing it in its place on the neck. If you have not the cervical vertebrae, the next best thing is to make them roughly and quickly out of wood, wire them together, and use as you would the real bones. The reason why this is necessary to success is that it is very difficult to make a wire bend in angles instead of curves after it has been wrapped with tow and inserted in the neck of the bird.

SETTING THE EYES.--On this point I have always been at war with most of my taxidermic friends. They insist that it is not best to insert the eyes in a bird as soon as it is finished otherwise, but leave the bird to dry without them. Afterward, they insert wet cotton, soften the eyelids, and then insert the clay backing and the eyes. They claim that this is necessary to prevent the skin from being drawn away from the eye by shrinkage in the general drying.

I hold that it is best to set the eyes at once, before the bird dries, in order to secure the greatest degree of elasticity in shaping the eyelids, and thereby have a more perfect mastery of the situation. But having seen my friends secure as good results by their method as I do by mine, I naturally conclude that it is only a matter of personal preference, and either way is good enough.

CHAPTER XXIV.

CLEANING THE PLUMAGE OF BIRDS.

I shall never forget how vainly I sought, when a lonesome and isolated amateur, to find somewhere in print some useful information about how to remove grease, dirt, and blood-stains from the plumage of birds. I remember well my disgust and anger at the makers of the so-called "complete" manuals of taxidermy that left me groping in Egyptian darkness on that subject, and most others also; and I registered a solemn vow that should I ever write on taxidermy I would do my best to afford some practical information on cleaning the plumage of birds.

As has been previously stated, the time to clean the plumage of a bird is while you are making up the fresh skin (Chapter VI.), before the skin has been laid away to dry, before the blood dries and imparts a _permanent_ stain (to white feathers, at least), and before the oil has had a chance to ooze out into the feathers to gather dirt, and presently form a nasty, yellow oil-cake upon the skin. In cleaning the skin of a fat or oily bird, sc.r.a.pe all the grease from the inside of the skin, and absorb it with corn meal or plaster Paris. Sc.r.a.pe the skin until it looks as if the feathers are about to fall out, until no more oil is raised, and then you may call it clean. When you have done this, you need not fear that any oil will ever exude upon the feathers.

FRESH SPECIMENS.--If a freshly killed bird has blood upon its plumage, separate the b.l.o.o.d.y feathers from the others, lift them on your fingers, and with warm water and a sponge gently sponge them off. Give the blood a little time to soften, and when the feathers are as clean as you can get them with water, wipe them as dry as you can, then sponge them over with clear spirits of turpentine or benzine, and absorb this with plaster Paris.

The manner of managing plaster Paris will be described in detail in another paragraph.

Very often the plumage of a freshly killed swan, gull, or duck, becomes so covered with dirt, blood, and grease by the time it reaches the taxidermist that it is a sight to behold. Never mind if it is, you can make it as good as new, in every respect, so far as cleanliness is concerned. The thing to do is to skin the bird, and clean the skin before either mounting it or making it up as a skin. The cleaning is often made easier, however, by hastily filling the loose skin with excelsior or tow, to give a firm foundation to work upon when cleaning the plumage.

If you have no turpentine, as will probably happen to you many a time when you least expect it, take some warm water, as warm as you can bear your hand in, rub some castile soap in it, and with a sponge, or a soft cotton cloth, wash the soiled feathers. Do not scrub them as you would a greasy floor, and utterly destroy the perfect set of the feathers, but sponge them with the grain, as far as possible, treating them as a compact layer.

Now, _if you have turpentine_, wipe the feathers as dry as you can, and give them a sponging with that, for they will come out better from the plaster Paris than otherwise. When the plaster is put upon feathers that are wet with water, it acts too quickly in its drying, and the feathers are often dried before they have had time to become fluffy as in life. But if you have no turpentine, you must finish without it. Whichever liquid you use, at the finish fill the feathers full of plaster Paris, and almost immediately lift the bird and beat it gently to knock out the saturated plaster. That done, put on more plaster, filling the feathers full of it down to their very roots, and presently whip that out also. By the time you have made the third application, the feathers are almost dry, and the plaster falls out almost dry also. Now is your time to whip the feathers with a supple switch, or a light filler of stiff wire, to make each bedraggled feather fluff up at the base of its shaft, and spread its web for all it is worth. This treatment is also vitally necessary to knock the plaster out of the plumage. Work the feathers with your long forceps, lifting them up a bunch at a time and letting them fall back into place. By this time the plaster flies out in a cloud of white dust, and the whipping of the feathers must be kept up without intermission until the plaster is _all out_. If any plaster remains in the feathers, you may count with certainty that it will always be sifting out upon the pedestal, and, what is even worse, if the plumage is black, or dark-colored, it will impart to it a gray and dusty appearance.

_Caution._--Remember that if you leave the first application of plaster, or even the second, too long in the feathers it will "set" or harden there, and make you wish you were dead before you get it out.

DRY SKINS.--The hardest subjects to deal with are old, dry skins. While fresh, fat is merely so much clean oil smeared on the feathers. An old, dry duck, goose, swan, penguin, auk, or albatross skin is liable to have the feathers of the breast and abdomen all caked together in a solid ma.s.s of rancid, yellow grease, to which time has added a quant.i.ty of museum dirt.

In mounting one of the charming specimens of this too numerous cla.s.s, it is not always safe to clean the feathers before inserting the body. There is danger that the skin will go to pieces. For this, and other reasons, the skin should be sc.r.a.ped clean inside, poisoned, furnished with a body, and sewn up before you attempt to clean the feathers.

When feathers are badly caked with old, dry grease, it is an excellent plan to apply a jet of steam to the afflicted region, which quickly warms and moistens the grease, and allows the turpentine to cut it in less than half the time it would otherwise require. There is nothing that starts dry grease as quickly as a little well-directed steam; but steam is a powerful shrinking agency, and it must be used with judgment.

Usually an old skin is so dirty that it requires to be "plastered" all over. If you have no steam, attack the greasy portions first with warm water (but no soap), to warm up the grease and soften it. Time and patience are both necessary. Next, wipe off the water, and with a wad of cotton cloth, tow, or cotton batting, dip from your dish of turpentine, and apply it as a wash upon the feathers, always rubbing with the grain, of course.

When, after repeated applications, you see that the turpentine has dissolved the grease to quite an extent, go rapidly over the remainder of the bird, then lay it down upon a sheet of heavy paper, upon its back, and cover it completely with plaster Paris. It takes two or three quarts to do this usually, and for a swan it requires a pailful.

As soon as the plaster has had time to absorb the greasy turpentine, which it does in about a minute, lift the bird from its burial-place, and holding it head upward hit it several sharp blows with a light stick to knock the plaster out of the feathers. Devote from three to five minutes to this, then examine the feathers and see whether they are perfectly clean. Most likely they are not, if it is a case of old grease, and a repet.i.tion of the dose is necessary. Start again with your wash of turpentine and do precisely as before (_without_ the use of any water). If this does not bring the feathers out clean and white from roots to tips, then give it a third going over, with unabated vigor and thoroughness. The third time is usually "the charm," even with the worst cases. This time the plaster must be thoroughly beaten out of the feathers, even if takes you an hour to accomplish it.

All this is rather disagreeable work. Of course you will put on old clothes and get out doors to windward of your bird while beating it, so that the plaster will fly off upon some other fellow. Soft feathers may be handled more carelessly than the stiffer sorts. Of course great care must be taken to not separate the web of the tail and wing feathers, nor to break the shafts of even the small ones. Beware getting any of the body feathers twisted during this operation, or they will not lie down where they belong.

Benzine can be used instead of turpentine in cleaning plumage, but it is too volatile, and evaporates too quickly to render the best service.

It is practically useless to attempt to remove clotted blood from the feathers of old dry skins. Even if by persistent effort the blood itself is removed, it leaves a lasting stain upon the feathers, and they are also permanently awry. The universal custom with taxidermists in such case is to obey the (paraphrased) scriptural injunction--if a feather offend thee, pluck it out. If this course leaves a vacancy in the plumage, steal a perfect feather from some suitable portion of the bird's body, and glue it fast in the place of the missing one. Fortunately, however, collectors have about ceased to make up skins to dry with blood upon them, and there is not much trouble to apprehend hereafter from that source.

CHAPTER XXV.

MOUNTING REPTILES.

OPHIDIA: _The Serpents._--There are several methods of mounting snakes, but only one that I can recommend. Such processes as ramming a rubber-like snake skin full of sawdust, or cotton, or tow, are to be mentioned only to be condemned. In my opinion, the only proper way to mount a serpent is to make a manikin of tow, carefully wound on a wire and afterward shaped with thread, and cover it with clay at the finish. It is necessary to attach small wires to the body-wire at given intervals, so that they can be pa.s.sed down through the pedestal, and afford a means by which a finished specimen may be drawn down and made to lie naturally.

A manikin for a large snake, like an anaconda or python, is best made of excelsior, and its exact form secured by sewing through it with a needle.

In the field notes printed in Chapter III. something may be learned of the form of the python.

If a snake is "stuffed," it stretches the scales apart most unnaturally, and never looks like life. For this reason, the clay-covered manikin is necessary, in order that any excess of skin may be modeled down upon it, and the scales be made to form an unbroken covering.

LACERTILIA: _The Lizards._--With the exception of the iguana, the gila monster, mastigure, and a few others, the lizards are so small and slender, and have tails so tapering out into thin air that they are altogether too small to be mounted by the ordinary methods of taxidermy. The finest method ever devised for the preservation and display of small reptiles and batrachians is that adopted by the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, Ma.s.s. Each specimen is preserved in clear spirits in a jar by itself, and instead of being dropped in head first to sink or swim, and tie itself into a bow-knot if it can, the reptile is placed (in the flesh) on a thin, rectangular slab of plaster Paris or cement, of the tint best suited to the display of the specimen. The object is placed in a life-like att.i.tude and held in place by threads which pa.s.s through holes in the slab and tie the feet down securely. The accompanying ill.u.s.tration (Fig. 54), drawn from a specimen, and the following description, both of which have been kindly furnished me by Mr. Samuel Garman, Curator of Reptiles, Museum of Comparative Zoology, will enable any intelligent preparator to adopt this admirable method:

"It was in 1875 we began to mount the reptiles and batrachians of the Museum of Comparative Zoology on tablets, in alcohol. Before that date they had been stuffed and dried, a method which proved rather unsatisfactory, especially so in regard to color, and the shrivelling of digits and tails.

However varied at first, the appearance soon became uniform and dusty.

Mounting in the alcohol does away with the most serious objections; we can give the specimens life-like att.i.tudes, or arrange them in groups as if playing, courting, or fighting; and the liquid heightens their beauty, as the water does that of the pebble at the seash.o.r.e, while ravages of insects are entirely out of the question.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 54.--Method of Mounting Alcoholic Reptiles at the Museum of Comparative Zoology.]

"The tablets are made of plaster Paris, or if a harder one with finer finish is desired, of cement mixed with water and spread on a gla.s.s plate to set. Holes are bored through them wherever necessary to fasten the specimen, which is simply tied on. With the tints used in fresco painting they are colored to suit. Experiments now under way convince me there is less fading on plates of certain colors than on the white ones. For black tablets, common slate is good. A mixture of plaster and cement makes a fine quality."