Taxidermy and Zoological Collecting by W. J. Holland

Author:W. J. Holland [Holland, W. J. (William Jacob)]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-07-31T00:00:00+00:00

PLATE XII.

Workshop of a Bird Taxidermist.

CHAPTER XXII.

MOUNTING SMALL BIRDS.

We will suppose that the skin of a small bird—a robin, blackbird, or thrush—now lies on the table before us all ready for mounting. Perhaps it is a dry skin which has been thoroughly relaxed, scraped, and worked into pliant shape; but, for the sake of the beginner, we will assume that it is a fresh skin which has just been taken off, poisoned, and turned right side out again, in accordance with the directions for skinning small birds which have been given in Chapter VI. The body of the bird lies before you, and instead of making up the subject as a dry skin, we will mount it.

In mounting small birds the following tools are absolutely necessary to the production of good results: A pair of flat-nosed pliers six inches long, for bending and clinching wires, price sixty cents; a pair of six-inch cutting pliers, for cutting wire, eighty-five cents; a pair of bird-stuffer's forceps, four to six inch, price twenty to seventy-five cents; a nine-inch flat file, twenty-two cents. Make for yourself a stuffing-rod, by taking a piece of stiff brass or iron wire, a little larger and longer than a knitting-needle, hammering one end flat, with a slight upward curve, and inserting the other in an awl-handle.

Of materials you will need some excelsior; some clean, fine tow; a little putty or potter's clay; a spool of cotton thread, No. 40, and some suitable glass eyes. With our tools and materials ready at hand, and the skin of our bird lying before us right side out, we are ready to begin a new operation,—mounting.

For a bird the size of a robin or cat-bird, cut two pieces of No. 18 soft or "annealed" iron wire (hard wire heated red hot and allowed to cool slowly), each three times the length of the bird's legs, from foot to end of long leg-bone, or tarsus. File one end of each wire to a slender and very sharp point, and rub a little oil or grease on each so that it will easily slip when inside the leg.

Fig. 48. —Wiring a Bird's Leg.

Now take one of the bird's legs between the thumb and finger of the left hand, holding it at the foot with the back part uppermost, and with the other hand enter the point of one of the sharpened wires at the centre of foot, push the wire up the back of the leg and over the heel until the point reaches to where the leg has been skinned. Be sure that you do not run the wire up the side of the leg, either at foot or knee, for if you do it will show badly when the bird is dry. Also be careful not to run the sharpened wire out through the skin just above the heel. To avoid this, grasp the leg at the heel between the thumb and middle finger of left hand, and by strong upward pressure

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