Practical taxidermy

by Montagu Browne

Nothing has as yet been done to the eyes, lips, or nose. Turn, therefore, the bags of the skin of the eyelids inside out, and, filling them with putty or clay, shape them and return. Fill up the orbits also with putty or clay to receive the eyes, packing up above and below them to show the various depressions and ridges. Turning the nose up, fill the nostrils and bag of the lips with putty or clay, being careful to show up all the wrinkles (the division in the chin, if one exists), and, in fine, generally modelling and filling out with putty or clay, of which you will use several pounds if you are working on a large head.

Sew up the lips, or perhaps a better plan is to enter a skin needle, charged with strong string, in at the lower lip, and bring the string around wires driven in at the front and sides of the nose inside, pulling your string over from side to side, and making a final stitch in the most convenient situation. Nicely insert the eyes, bringing the upper lids over, so as not to give too staring an appearance to the animal, and hang the head up to dry by firmly attaching a very strong hook of wire to the oval block, or by a small rope tied round the horns at their base.

Note that the horns of goats, antelopes, etc.., and bulls and cows are set on a bony core, and must come off to prevent an offensive effluvium. Placing the skull in a hot bed has been recommended, boiling will sometimes fetch the horns off, but it very often happens that nothing but time will loosen them. When this occurs wash the cores and horns with carbolic wash (No. 15).

The student may, if he likes, fill in the eyelids, bags of the upper and lower lips, and nostrils with putty or clay before drawing the skin on the head; but in this case he will have to sew the inner to the upper skins, in addition to which he will find many things occur in drawing on and shaping the skin to render most of his labour useless if these parts are modelled first instead of last.

The following system, the fourth, differs from all the preceding in there being erected a sort of framework on which to mount the skin, and hence is in use only for large animals. As an illustration let us take the bear (which was the last large animal I caused to be set up by this method).

Skin as before, subsequently removing the leg bones and head, and modelling as in the second system, or working by the first method, according to your degree of proficiency. To do such an animal as a bear, however, you should remove all the bones of the legs, and skin to the toes, as directed in the second system, also removing the skull, and treating it and the skin of the head as before.

Procure now a piece of deal 2 in. square, and of the length which you wish your animal to assume when finished, calculating from the centre of the chest to the tail. In this wood fix a strong iron rod, or wire, at one end, by boring two holes through it at some distance apart, and pushing the end of the wire in at one hole, then beating it down and clenching it through the other.

The bar of wood now represents the backbone, and the wire the neck of the animal. Point the wire and push it up into the skull, which model up as before, binding tow round the wire underneath to roughly form a neck somewhat smaller than you intend it to be when finished. Pull the skin over this, and adjust it so that you may see the places on the wooden backbone where the fore and hind limbs will come. Having marked the position of these, pull back the skin up to the neck, and bore holes through the wood, at right angles to the other holes made for the neck wire.

Taking now four rods or wires for the legs, point each at one end, and screw the other with "nuts" to fit the screws, bend each rod for 7 in. or more, at a sharp angle, at its screwed end, and push the pointed end down the fore legs from the inside, so that the points come through the ball of each foot, and having stuffed and bent the fore-legs into shape, push the screwed part into, and through, the corresponding holes in the artificial backbone; screwing on the "nuts" on the opposite aides, which will of course prevent the rods from pulling through again.

Finish the stuffing of the neck and chest, and coming along the body repeat the same process with the hind limbs as with the fore. Greater steadiness can be attained if required, by using two "nuts" instead of one to each rod, that is to say, one on each side of the wood, No. 1 being screwed on first, the arm of the rod then pushed through the hole, and "nut" No. 2 screwed up to its bearing.