Practical taxidermy

by Montagu Browne

The bird has now its wings, legs, and tail fixed, and the free end of the supporting wire is sticking out from under the wing. Fix this wire firmly through the top of a narrow strip of board at such a distance as to miss the outspread wing; let this board also be long enough to allow of one end being fixed in a vice or screwed to the edge of a table, whilst the hawk or other bird clears its surface. The bird being now "shaped up" a little, take the two thinnest wires and enter the point of one in each wing at the end of the fleshy part of the wing (really the bird's middle finger), or through the base of the first quill, an inch or so from the other wire. This last wire travels along the outside of the feathers under the wing, and is consequently not hidden at all when pushed into the body: its use is to curve the wing upon it into a graceful shape, and when the bird is sufficiently dry it is pulled out, the first wire at the shoulder being quite sufficient to bear up the wing when set.

As, however, the wing feathers start up here and there, and do not readily conform to all the curves of the wires, the wiring and binding must be supplemented by "braces," which are narrow strips of cardboard pinned in pairs at intervals below and above the wing, and held in position by pins running through both braces from the under to the upper surface. For explanation of this see Plate I (Frontispiece), a hawk properly "set up" and "bound" to represent it swooping on its prey.

Putty sometimes greases light-coloured skins around the eyes; it will be well, therefore, to insert in its stead a little "pipe" or modelling clay worked up stiff. (Clay will be treated of in a subsequent chapter. It will be found useful for the faces of some sea-birds and hawks, and indeed for the greater part of the body and legs of large birds. The Cassowary in the Leicester Museum has been worked up largely in this manner.)

Steel pins with black bead heads are first-rate helps to binding. They are sold in various lengths, and being long, sharp, and fine, quite supersede ordinary pins.

Audi alteram partem! Let us now take the evidence of Waterton:

"You will observe how beautifully the feathers of a bird are arranged; one falling over the other in nicest order, and that, where this charming harmony is interrupted, the defeat, though not noticed by an ordinary spectator, will appear immediately to the eye of a naturalist. Thus, a bird not wounded, and in perfect feather, must be procured, if possible, for the loss of feathers can seldom be made good; and where the deficiency is great all the skill of the artist will avail him little in his attempt to conceal the defect; because, in order to hide it, he must contract the skin, bring down the upper feathers and shove in the lower ones, which would throw all the surrounding parts into contortion.

You will also observe that the whole of the skin does not produce feathers, and that it is very tender where the feathers do not grow. The bare parts are admirably formed for expansion about the throat and stomach, and they fit into the different cavities of the body at the wings, shoulder, rump, and thighs, with wonderful exactness, so that in stuffing the bird, if you make an even rotund surface of the skin, where the cavities existed, in lieu of re-forming them, all symmetry, order, and proportion are lost for ever.

You must lay it down as an absolute rule that the bird is to be entirely skinned, otherwise you can never succeed in forming a true and pleasing specimen.

You will allow this to be just, after reflecting a moment on the nature of the fleshy parts and tendons, which are often left in. First, they require to be well seasoned with aromatic spices; secondly, they must be put into the oven to dry; thirdly, the heat of the fire, and the natural tendency all cured flesh has to shrink and become hard, render the specimen withered, distorted, and too small; fourthly, the inside then becomes like a ham or any other dried meat. Ere long the insects claim it as their own, the feathers begin to drop off, and you have the hideous spectacle of death in ragged plumage.

Wire is of no manner of use, but, on the contrary, a great nuisance, for, when it is introduced, a disagreeable stiffness and disarrangement of symmetry follow.