Practical taxidermy

by Montagu Browne

The tongue, if intended to be shown, must be removed from the pickle, cut on its under side, and skinned completely out to the tips and to each edge. All the included flesh must then be cut away, and replaced with putty, the cut sewn up, and it is then ready to be inserted in the mouth in the required position, when modelled into shape.

The animal being stuffed and mounted to your satisfaction, you must bear in mind, that although you have perfectly cured the skin — turning it, in fact, into a species of leather — you have not rendered it proof against the attacks of insects; it must, therefore, be washed over with one of the preparations given in Chapter IV.

The preceding method of skinning and stuffing an animal is given, not because it is the most scientific, but because it is the most satisfactory to the learner, and is, indeed, the method which obtains with the majority of taxidermists. Though perfectly efficient as far as it goes, it yet possesses the disadvantage of allowing a certain percentage of shrinkage, and that caused solely by the yielding nature of the tow used to fill out the places where the muscles formerly rested. To an educated eye this defect is at once recognised by the uneven contour of the cheeks, superciliary muscles, and various parts of the limbs, and also by the generally "wooden" appearance of the specimen.

The system on which I will now give a lesson is far more tedious in its application, but certain in its effects, being, in fact, substituting hard for loose stuffing, and differing from the foregoing in one essential particular, viz., the modelling of the head and limbs with a medium of an unyielding nature. To illustrate this, we will take another fox or similar animal. After skinning it, as in the foregoing lesson, you will, instead of leaving the leg bones in the skin, cut them completely out down to the claws, which may best be done by skinning down as far as you can, cutting the bones off at the last joint, then making an incision above the pads, and slipping the bones completely out; this allows you to work right down to the last joint of the phalanges or toes, at which point you cut the bones free.

The head is now to be considered. When it has been cut off as before, skin down to the eyelids, and instead of leaving them attached at the lower angles, cut them completely away. Now take the skin off all round the skull, until the return of the skin of the side of the mouth is arrived at. Skin well under the jaw to the very tip, and now begin under-cutting at the sides, coming up to the return angle — keeping, however, well to the side of the skin. By cautious working you can skin in between the inner and outer skins until you can touch the tips of the lower teeth at the point of the jaw with your fingers.

Coming along from here by the side of the lower jaw, you skin by undercutting almost to the inside of the mouth, taking care not to cut the thin membrane which holds at the extreme edge. Still working along the lower jaw, come right up until you can cut out, just under the eye, the top end of the return. Leaving it attached by a thin membrane 'to the upper jaw, skin downward toward the nose, and, by undercutting and using great care, completely skin up to the nostril, which sever. Do precisely the same with the other side. The nostrils being completely skinned out, the skin holds just below them.

Place the head on the table, standing on the base of its skull, the ears toward you. Take the nostrils with the finger and thumb of the left hand, and with the knife (the broad knife will be found most useful here) very carefully work all round until you arrive at the extreme tip of the inner skin of the upper jaw, which is now turned inside out, and actually rests below the under jaw. Your cuts must be made a hair's breadth at a time to get to the extreme edge. By this time the severed nostrils will have fallen some little distance underneath the under jaw. See, now, that the lips, both upper and lower, as well as the inner angles of the mouth, are skinned inside to the extreme edge at every point, or all your labour will be thrown away. This operation is one of the most nice and difficult in the whole range of skinning operations, and is equally difficult to describe. Cut out the cartilage of the nose, slip out the tongue, and generally trim the head in the usual manner, and well rub in the preservative. If you should find too much of the inner angle left far up in the mouth it may be cut off.

If the head were returned now it would be seen that the lower edges of the inside skin of the mouth were the only points of attachment, and even there only to the edge of the teeth all around them.

The skull bone being now only attached to the subject, literally by the "skin of its teeth," you have the whole bone exposed to work on.

Fill up the orbits and hollow bone of the nose with any loose pieces of peat, to give solidity to the next operation, which is, to cut pieces of peat in an artistic manner to represent the flesh of the cheeks, the chin, the top of the head, and the cartilage of the nose. When the whole of these pieces are shaped to their required measurements, attach them by string or wire to their neighbouring bones in the manner which occurs to you as being the best. Having well secured them, go over the whole with plaster of Paris, mixed with water to the consistence of a stiff paste, merely smoothing it as it sets, up to the required shape with a broad knife. The plaster will soon set, and may be further rasped or trimmed into shape. Plaster alone may be used, but my reason for making a substratum of peat is, that if the former only is used it renders the head unpleasantly heavy.