PUCE.
Scour and rinse the feathers well; grays can be used in their natural color without bleaching. Prepare a warm bath, in which dissolve eighty per cent., of the weight of feathers, tartaric acid and eighty per cent. Glauber salt; then add sixteen per cent. aniline fast brown; eight per cent. azo yellow, and sixteen per cent. induline or nigrosine, and bring the bath to a boil; after a few minutes of boiling, chill by the addition of cold water, enter the feathers and work them at hand-heat for fifteen or twenty minutes until the color has become level; then bring the bath again to near the boiling point; lay the feathers down in the bath, shut off the steam, or withdraw from the fire, and let the bath cool down. When cold, that is in about one or two hours, take out the feathers, rinse and dry.
FAWN.
Prepare a warm bath with five per cent. bisulphate of soda, add solutions of azo orange, acid violet and some archil cautiously in several doses until the bath has the desired color. Enter the scoured and rinsed feathers and agitate for fifteen or twenty minutes, to produce a level dye; then raise the temperature slowly to 190-200° F., dye for a few minutes longer, lift, rinse and dry.
By varying the proportions of the dyestuffs, drab, wood brown, lead color, etc., can be obtained, and olives by increasing the quantity of acid violet and omitting the extract of archil.
CHESTNUT BROWN.
Scour and rinse the feathers well; natural grays may be used unbleached. Prepare a decoction of one and one quarter pound cudbear, and six ounces turmeric in two gallons of water, strain through a cloth and enter the feathers at hand heat (about 90-100° F.); work them for twenty or thirty minutes, or until they have attained a nourished garnet color. Then take them out, rinse, lay them down for five minutes in a cold solution of about six ounces copperas in one-half gallon of water, take them up and rinse in cold water. Then return to the first bath, operate for fifteen minutes at hand heat, enter again, after rinsing, the iron bath, and continue alternately dyeing upon the two baths until the required shade is obtained. Rinse every time on shifting from one bath to the other, in clean water, and finally rinse well, starch and dry.
HAVANNA.
I. For this color it is advisable to use naturally white or bleached feathers, scour or wash them clean in soap and warm water and remove the soap by thoroughly rinsing in two warm and one cold waters. Prepare a bath slightly acidulated with sulphuric acid, to which add eighty per cent., of the weight of feathers, tartaric acid, eight per cent. azo yellow, six per cent. fast brown, and three and a quarter per cent. acid green. Enter the feathers at 100-120° F. and manipulate at that temperature for ten or fifteen minutes. Then raise the temperature to the boiling point (but do not boil), lay the feathers down in the bath for one-half to one hour, while the bath cools down, lift, starch and finish as usual.
II. Prepare a bath slightly acidulated with sulphuric acid, bring to nearly boiling, add a concentrated solution of orange S. and some acid green, enter the feathers and dye to shade; then pass them through a week oil-bath, and dry them, placed straight between several laps of clean muslin.