Practical taxidermy

by Montagu Browne

To skin a bird from under the wing, select the worst side, or that injured the most by shot, etc.., and laying the bird with that side uppermost, make an incision from just above the leg to just under the wing. Push the leg-bone up, and cut it off with a pair of scissors; then work the skin away a little from the back, and as much as possible from the breast, gradually working your way until you see the wing-bone, which cut off. Careful skinning brings you to the neck and windpipe, which also cut off. The whole of one side of the bird is now skinned out with the exception of the tail; come downward on the opposite side to your incision, and across the breast until you can cut off the remaining wing; having done this, keep skinning downward until the leg is arrived at, and cut off. Nothing now holds the skin to the body but the tail-bone, which separate. Clean and finish the bird in the ordinary way.

I shall now suppose that, instead of making a skin (as previously described), you desire to stuff the specimen with the ultimate idea of its forming part of a collection mounted in the same manner as the birds are mounted in the British Museum — namely, on turned stands as perches; or, as is usual now, to form a unit of a characteristic group mounted in a more artistic manner in a shade or a case.

For the purpose of this lesson I have "relaxed" the original starling we before made into a skin, and shall now mount it, keeping to one bird, so as not to confuse the learner.

In "setting up" a bird we require to use wires. The sizes of wires are determined by gauges. Thus the smallest sized wire made is that known as Gauge 28. This and the two following numbers, 26 and 27, are only required for the humming birds; 28 is, however, a good size for the least. 24 will be found a good size for the smaller kinds of warblers and finches up to canaries. 21 is a useful general size for a great number of small birds, and will do for such a bird as the hawfinch. 19 is a good size for thrushes and starlings, and will also do very well for squirrels. 16 is a good useful size for many things — will do for such birds as the landrail or pigeons. 13 is a good size for such birds as parrots, and that or the next largest size will do for owls. 12 will do for the larger hawks, such as the peregrine falcon, etc.., and for small dogs. 9 is more suitable for foxes and larger dogs. 7 will do for eagles. 5, 3, and 1 approach so nearly to bars as to be fit only for the larger animals.

As a rule, however, practice enables a person to use smaller sized wires than appears possible to him at first. I would here also recommend that "galvanised" be used instead of the common "annealed" wire (never use "hard" wire) for all purposes, excepting for large animals. Its advantages are very great, as I can personally testify.

If you decide on mounting your bird on a turned stand, you will, if not possessing a lathe yourself, have to call in the assistance of a turner, who will, for a small sum, turn the requisite stands, which may be either in mahogany, boxwood, ebony, or ivory, according to your taste and the length of your pocket. If, on the contrary, you decide to ultimately mount your specimen in a case or a shade, you had better provide yourself with some wire of a suitable strength, and some tow, which latter you will proceed to wrap round the wire to within a couple of inches of one end — forming, in fact, an artificial twig, which you may bend to any shape, riveting the unbound end through a piece of wood of sufficient weight to balance the bird when set up.

Having, then, before you, as the first indispensable adjunct, the turned stand or artificial twig (a natural one does in some cases), the stuffing irons, file, crooked awl, pliers, scissors, wire, tow, needle and thread, pins, and some fine darning cotton, which is called "wrapping cotton," you proceed to business thus: The bird being skinned, all the flesh cleaned out, and well dressed with the preservative up to the point previously described — leg bones being wrapped and wings being tied — lay the bird down on a clean piece of paper.

Having selected the wire of two sizes, of a suitable thickness, the thinner for the body wire and the other for the leg wires, cut the three, with the aid of the pliers, a little longer than the body and legs respectively, pointing each wire at one end with a file — not rounding the points, but leaving them with cutting edges.

Taking up the thicker or body wire in the right hand and some tow in the left, commence at about an inch from the point to tightly and neatly bind on the tow in the shape of the neck, and of nearly the same length that the neck was before being cut off — that is to say, making the artificial neck somewhat longer than the neck of the skin (if properly taken off and not abnormally lengthened) appears to be. The reason for this is that the natural neck, being carried between the clavicles forming the furculum or "merry-thought," is bent downward and forward between them when perching (see Fig. 22); hence the artificial neck must imitate nature so far as that, when inserted in the skin, it may be also bent forward and downward, and afterwards thrown back on the body in a natural position.

Of course, if a bird's neck is to be represented very short, as it will be in certain attitudes, the artificial neck must be almost, if not quite, done away with; indeed, the shortening of the neck of the mounted specimen depends almost entirely on the absence of stuffing above the shoulders. Be sure, also, not to stuff the skin too wide about the shoulders; if so, the "butts" of the wings will never come into place, nor allow the feathers of the breast to be brought over them in a natural manner.