Your progress up to this point is simply a headless neck attached to a tow body, supported by natural legs fixed to a perch. I assume that your fragments are sufficiently relaxed, and the feathers cleaned and nearly dried. All the fat must, of course, have been scraped off the inside of each piece of skin. Arrange these pieces in the order they should come upon the model, to get the "fit," as a dressmaker would arrange the patterns of a dress upon a lady. Notice where your model is too small or misshapen, and bind on pieces of tow; or paste and bind on wadding, excepting near the wings, where wires would fail to pierce wool or wadding.
When properly-shaped, give the whole of the model a good dressing with flour paste (see No. 31), into which a little carbolic acid has been stirred. Paste the inside of each piece of skin with this, and commence to finally rearrange them. As a rule, the under and breast pieces are fixed first, then the wings are wired* and firmly clenched on the body; adjust the wings into proper position, bringing the breast feathers over at the shoulders; next, put on the wing coverts, the back, the tail (firmly wired), and the upper and under tail coverts; lastly, the head and neck pieces, shaping the made neck into position, etc.., as you proceed. [Footnote: Note that even in close-winged birds, which a pieced specimen such as this one described must be of necessity, it is always advisable to wire the wings as for flight, running them on these wires close to the body, and giving them by this means the necessary curvature; entirely different, and much more natural, than if simply bolted on by straight wires running through the shoulders into the body.]
Sometimes it is necessary to slip a piece of wadding underneath to swell out a certain set of feathers; in this case, lift up the surrounding parts with a crooked awl or with the feather-pliers, and carefully insert the wadding in such a manner that the paste shall not clog the other feathers in juxtaposition.
When finished to your satisfaction, lightly sponge off any excess of paste with warm water; wipe down with benzoline, and dust plaster thickly over all the specimen; this assists the drying and cleans it. In an hour or so dust off the plaster with a bunch of feathers, and bind the skin with "wrapping cotton" in the usual manner. Set it in a warm place, or in a current of air, for a week or so, to dry, and, lastly, put in the eyes and finish off. The foregoing, though apparently a Caesarian operation, is not difficult to a practised hand. I may, perhaps, here mention, in order to encourage my readers, that I myself once successfully mounted a large snowy owl from thirteen pieces of skin, and that had there been twenty-three it would have come out just as well.
In "relaxing" it is often better, especially in such specimens as Birds of Paradise, to pull off the legs and wings; by this means the skin is more easily stretched, and always, in the hands of a master, makes up more satisfactorily than by any other means.
COLOURING BILLS AND FEET OF BIRDS. — Birds which, when alive, have either legs, bills, or faces of various bright colours, lose these tints when dead, and after lapse of time, the colouring matter in some cases totally disappears, and nothing can restore the loss of pigment but artificial treatment of the faded parts. To do this satisfactorily is not one of the easiest matters in the world, inasmuch as two things are to be strictly guarded against. One — thick painting, which hides all the characteristics of the scutellae, or plates of the legs and toes, or fills up the minute papillae of the face; the other — imparting a too shining or varnished appearance to the parts coloured. So little colour is required for this purpose that I have found the oil-colour tubes used by artists to be the handiest and cheapest. The colour, when squeezed out, is to be thinned with turpentine only, until it readily flows off the brush on to the beak or legs of the specimen; if properly done it is very transparent, and of just sufficient quality to give the necessary brightness without undesirable shininess.
The colours that are most useful are chrome yellow, yellow ochre, Prussian blue, permanent blue, light red, burnt umber, flake white, and vermilion. With these every shade of grey, blue, green, red, or pink can be obtained; they are all cheap, but if a quantity of vermilion is desired, it is cheapest bought as a powder at the oilman's, and mixed as required. When colour tubes are not procurable, the same colours are to be obtained at the oilman's in powder, or ready mixed, which latter must be thinned with one part transparent paper varnish to two parts turpentine (turps), the varnish being added or decreased as dry or mixed colours are used.
"Brunswick black," a cheap and durable brown, if laid on thinly, i.e., thinned with turps, is sometimes used for colouring the noses of mammals. It must be recollected, however, that greys predominate in some noses over browns, and that the surface is seldom of one tint, hence "Brunswick black" is seldom used by artists, who prefer to make tints from some of the colours mentioned.
Faces of parrots must be whitened with dry "flake white" applied with a piece of cotton wool.