Scraping and Cleaning Relaxed Skins.—After a dry bird skin has been softened, it then remains to scrape it clean and manipulate it all over to get it into thoroughly elastic working order, as soft and pliable (if possible) as when first taken off. Small skins should be scraped with the round end of a small bone-scraper, which has a sharp chisel edge, but the large ones must be scraped with a small-toothed skin-scraper such as is used on small mammals.
Of the many thousand species of recent birds, only the ostriches, penguins, and a few others have the feathers distributed evenly over the whole body. In all the Euornithes they are arranged in regular patches or groups, called pterylæ, between which lie the naked or downy spaces, called apteria. In thin-skinned birds it is the pterylæ that need to be attacked with the scraper, and so scraped and stretched and pulled apart that the skin widens, and each feather is free, as in life, to move on its own root independently, and take whatever position it should have on the mounted bird. Turn the skin completely wrong side out, scrape it all over, and get every part fully relaxed, and into thorough working order. Large birds, or birds with thick, fat skins, require plenty of work to get out all the grease, and get the wings, legs, and head into a thorough state of collapse. In large, long-legged birds, the tendons must be removed from the leg, the same as if the specimen were a fresh one, for otherwise the wire may split the skin of the tarsus wide open, and make a very bad and unsightly turn at the heel besides. It is a difficult task to remove the tendon from the leg of an old, dry heron or crane, but it must be done.
Damaged Skins.—It not infrequently happens that in cleaning and scraping a rare and valuable old skin it proves to be "burnt" with grease, and goes to pieces like so much brown paper.
"Now is the winter of our discontent."
If the skin is not torn too badly it may be lined with thin cotton or linen cloth, which must be cut and fitted within, and sewed fast to the skin all over. This plan, though rather tedious to work out, develops admirably when determinedly and carefully pursued.
If the skin goes all to pieces, a manikin must be made, and the pieces glued upon it, one by one, beginning at the tail,—a process which is so simple it is unnecessary to describe it in detail. In Fig. 50 is seen a manikin all ready to receive its feathers, wings, and head.
PLATE XII.
[a]Workshop of a Bird Taxidermist.]