Use the leg bones and wrap them thinly with tow. Wrap a small, hard, tow neck upon the wire and a thin tow core upon the tail-wire. Cover these cores, to natural size of muscles, with papier mache.
Cover the skull where meat was scraped from jaws. Push the neck, tail and legs into place and wire to shell as in [Fig. 27]. Stuff shell with tow to hold papier mache filling of limbs in place until dry.
Turtles mounted in this way should be positioned upon a board, modeled with a tool into anatomical lines of neck, legs, etc., and allowed to remain wired upon the board until the compo. begins to harden.
When this is well under way, take the turtle from the board and finish drying, wrong side up in a well ventilated place. Remove the tow from inside the shell to allow of quicker evaporation. Turtles mounted with sawdust dry very quickly and usually very slowly when finished in papier mache.
PREPARING AND MOUNTING A SMALL LIZARD
(Apply the wrapped body principle, given herewith, to mounting small snakes, using a wire through center.)
A horned toad is a good example for us to work out in this department. Skin the specimen as you would a small mammal, except that body incision runs from jaw to tip of tail and skull is left attached to face-skin. Keep the skinned carcass in alcohol for reference in making the hard wrapped excelsior body. Mount as you would a bird specimen, except that all leg-wires are set solid same as the two legs of the bird are.
The lizard's leg bones are wired exactly as in a bird and are wrapped with tow or cotton to replace muscles. Wire neck and tail and put the specimen together as shown in [Fig. 29].