In a small piece of board, drill two holes in the position in which you wish the feet to be. Run the wires of the feet through these, turn them back, and fix them. Push the body slightly back, and, at the same time, bend the legs at the joints. If the bird is flying, the legs should not be bent, but straight out parallel with the body.
The position of the wings must also depend on that of the bird. If it is flying, they must be kept stretched out by a wire run through underneath them horizontally, catching each individual feather. If the wings are closed, needle points are enough to pin them through to the body. The thickness of the wire must depend on the size of the bird. The tail must be likewise fixed with wire. The eyes may now be put in by opening the eyelids and forcing them down far enough into the head, and then carefully manipulating the eyelid to get the eye to sit right. When a bird is first shot the colour of the eye should be noticed, and be matched as nearly as possible when buying the glass eyes.
When thus completed, the specimen will often present a battered and ugly appearance, but it is wonderful how much it will improve with careful touching up, and arranging the feathers with a needle point or probe. Varnishing the beak and legs is a further improvement. An artistic effect is obtained by considering the nature and habits of the specimen, and studying its natural poses. For instance, a pheasant struts with a straight neck, a swan sits on the water with its neck gracefully arched.
The arsenical soap above mentioned can be procured at any chemist’s, or made as follows: camphor, five drachms; arsenic, four ounces; white soap, four ounces; flaked lime, four ounces; mix with a little water into a soft paste.
Before using the arsenical soap, be careful to remove every scrap of meat from the skin. Be most careful, also, to wash the hands after using it.
A group of birds can be arranged in a case on imitation rocks, in the following manner: Lay a piece of paper over the wood stand on which the birds are fixed, and arrange it in the shape of rock and stones. Pour over it a hot solution consisting of one part glue, one part whiting, and one part sand, which in a short time becomes very hard. Dried stick, ferns, and grasses, or shells, can be added.
III.—ON PRESERVING THE SKINS AND HEADS OF ANIMALS.
Although the manner of setting-up animals is somewhat similar to that of birds, the mode of preserving the skins and furs is very different. Whereas a bird has a most delicate skin, and is eventually put into a glass case out of the dust, an animal’s hide, in nine cases out of ten, is either used as a carriage or hearth rug, or a footstool, or, as in the case of a head, hung unprotected against the wall.
As in all probability tiger and buffalo skins will not come in the way of the readers of these lines, it is rather such ‘small deer’ as the denizens of our English woods they will be anxious to preserve, to wit, foxes’ heads, cats, otters, stoats, weazels, moles, or water-rats. But the following hints apply equally to a tiger-skin or a squirrel’s:—