When any animal is mounted in a walking attitude, the foot which is represented in the act of leaving the ground must always have its centre well elevated, and only the toes touching. This being the case, surely no intelligent taxidermist will ever be guilty of so unpardonable an offence against the eye as to run the supporting-iron straight down from the ball of the foot to the pedestal, with a ghastly section of it exposed to view. No matter how you manage it, the iron must follow the bones of the foot until it reaches the toes, and then it can be bent down to a perpendicular line and passed through the pedestal, always out of sight.
PLATE XIII.
[a]Mounted Bird, with Interior Structure Exposed.]
In all but the largest birds, the leg-wires are fastened in the body in precisely the same way as described and illustrated in the previous chapter, except that it requires stouter pliers and more strength to bend them and clinch them firmly in the body. In inserting the leg-wires in the artificial body, be sure to enter them about the middle of the body, on each side, and not near the tail, as nearly all beginners are prone to do. This is by all odds the commonest and worst fault in mounted birds that fall short of perfection. It arises from the fact that the beginner makes the mistake of entering the leg-wires at the same point where the bird's humerus joins the pelvis, which is too far back by just one-third of the length of the entire body! The humerus is not represented on your wire at all, and the wire should enter the body precisely where the knee-joint comes in the living bird. The flesh and bone of the thigh is made up (or should be, at least) on the artificial body, not on your leg-wire. Lay out a dead bird in a walking attitude, or study a skeleton (see Fig. 70), and see where the knee-joint comes; then you will never again be in danger of spoiling a bird by making its legs come out from under its tail.
In mounting large birds, the sizes of the wires I have used were as follows: Great horned owl, No. 8 or 9; bald eagle, No. 7 or 8; peacock, No. 7; great blue heron, No. 6; sandhill crane, No. 5.
An ostrich or emu requires a manikin constructed on the same principles as that built for the tiger, except that each leg-rod should have two iron squares instead of one. The upper extremity of the leg-rod is clamped tightly to one square, with two nuts, as usual; but in addition to this there should be a second square with a hole in its short arm large enough for the smooth rod to slip through, and this should be screwed to the body-board as low down as the anatomy of the bird will allow. The object of this second iron is to prevent the bipedal specimen from swaying and leaning over, as it would otherwise be very apt to do.
Inasmuch as the legs of an ostrich or emu always require to be cut open and completely skinned, the manikin method is perfectly adapted to their wants. If the skin is so shrunken that it requires vigorous stretching, its body must be stuffed with straw after the neck and legs have been made and joined to a centre-board, precisely as directed for long-haired mammals above medium size. I may also remark in this connection that I have seen both the complete skin and skeleton of a large ostrich preserved and mounted to stand side by side, but I pitied the operator when he had to make a full set of bones for the legs and feet, and a wooden skull with the horny shell of the beak fastened upon it. At one stage of the proceedings the outlook for the skin seemed anything but promising, and on the whole I would not advise anyone save an expert to attempt a similar task.
Mounting Birds with Wings Spread.—In the first place, each wing must have a wire large enough to adequately support it. This should be straight, bright, well-oiled, and filed sharp at both ends. One end is to be inserted inside the skin, passed along next to the wing-bones as far as the carpal joint, from thence it is forced on as far as possible between the skin and the under surface of the metacarpal bones until it emerges from the feathers not far from the end of the fleshy portion of the wing. The wing must be so straight that the wire can be slipped through it freely backward and forward. It must next be passed through the artificial body at the point where the upper end of the humerus is attached to the coracoid in the complete skeleton, and very firmly clinched in the same way as described for the leg-wires. Then lay the bird upon its back, place the wing exactly in position, bend the wing-wires so they will fit snugly against the wing-bones, and tie them firmly down. After that, the middle joint of each wing is to be poisoned, stuffed with fine tow, and sewn up neatly. Of course the wings can not be given their correct elevation and pose until the bird is placed firmly upon its temporary perch, unless it is to be represented as flying.
Now is the time to properly dispose of the feet. If the talons are to be grasping any kind of prey, the object must be placed at once, before the feet begin to dry. If the bird is to be in full flight, they must be drawn up, clinched, and almost concealed in the feathers. To keep the feathers of a spread wing in place while the specimen is drying, thrust a long, sharpened wire into the body under the wing, and another on top, bend both until they conform to the curve of the wing, twist their outer ends together, and then slip under each wire a long, narrow strip of pasteboard. Such a specimen requires constant watching lest something get awry by accident, and dry so. The winding of a bird with its wings spread, to say nothing of laying the plumage, is a difficult and delicate matter, and the chances are that he who takes the greatest pains will produce the best bird.