Fig. 18 — French Cutting Nippers
I now figure a most necessary little pair of pliers for dressing the feathers of birds. These are also used by watchmakers, are of neat construction and differ from most pliers in having an obtusely rounded point (see Fig. 19, A and B). These, which I call "feather pliers," are in conjunction with a small, thick, round, camel-hair brush (used by artists for "washing in"), indispensable for "feathering up" birds, a process to be described later on.
Fig. 20 is the next, and I fancy I hear some reader exclaim, "What on earth has a goffering-iron to do with taxidermy?" I reply: This shaped tool is wanted for artfully conveying small morsels of tow, etc.., into the necks and hollow places of birds' skins. It may be easily made in this wise: Procure as small and fine a pair of goffering-irons as you possibly can, and have them drawn out and brought to a fine yet obtuse point by some smith, and you thus get a finished tool for about half what it would cost to make outright. Length, when finished, should be somewhere about 10 in.
Fig. 19 — Feather Pliers
A large and a fine crooked awl with handles, a file, and a rough stone from the leatherseller's, are other things to procure, and these, with the ten tools previously particularised, some tow, wool, wire, eyes, and a needle and thread, a pot of preservative paste, and a piece of wood or a wire for a stuffing iron, are all that the amateur or the professional requires to skin and stuff a small or medium-sized bird or mammal. Cost of the stone and tools (which, with ordinary care, will last for years) should be within the reach of all.
Fig. 20 — Tow Forceps
The "stuffing iron" mentioned above is best made, if wanted for small birds, from the broken steel of a wool comber's "devil," about nine inches long, fixed in a bradawl handle of about four inches, or, if for large birds or mammals, the iron may be made from a broken fencing foil, to any size between twelve and thirty inches, with suitable handle. In either case the smallest end is driven into the handle, and the top is filed across with a smooth nick, to push in, but not to retain the tow. See Fig. 21.
