The specimen is now ready to place upon its base, perch, or stand. With the approximate position shaped, mark the perch for wire holes by holding specimen over it and indicating places where wires come, by scratch or pencil mark. When holes are drilled and the specimen wired into place, take a strong fur needle set into a handle and by working and compressing with the fingers and jab-lifting with the needle, finish shaping and positioning.

Hold in hollow of flanks by sewing through here with long needle and strong cord, heavily knotted for the first hold. Finish this sewing with a knot drawn down into the fur under the thumb. Arrange the fur over all st.i.tches by picking it free with tweezers.

With the body finished, take up filling and finishing the head with the compo. First work compo. into the ears and pinch them out thin and into their natural shape, then cover the entire face under the skin with compo. Fill eye sockets and set eyes as second step. Lastly fill the nose and lips and model them firmly upon the jaws. In all mammals cover the teeth well with the lips. Even in a muskrat the teeth do not ordinarily show at all. Also avoid getting the lips, nose, and whisker base too full. Set the tail into easy normal position, pin toes to grasp the perch or set well upon the ground and inspect the body to see that no hollow or b.u.mps remain in the filling where there should be perfect smoothness. Remove such of these as persist with the handle-held fur needle and then set the specimen in a well ventilated place to dry.

The princ.i.p.al point in preparing thin or stretchy small mammal skins for mounting is to leave the membrane of skin-muscles on the body skin.

This holds a flabby skin in shape and lends strength to a frail one. In spite of this the legs of most wild rabbits must be handled very gingerly, as they have no lining membrane like the body. For finishing mouth, nose, and eyelids of mounted mammals, melt a little refined beeswax in a metal vessel. While the wax is hot (don't allow it to smoke), stir in a little tube oil color (black or brown for most mammals; color to nature for birds with highly tinted eyelids). Mix the wax and color thoroughly with a flat bristle brush. Afterward the brush may be easily cleaned of the wax by breaking it up with alcohol, when it has cooled.

Next draw some wisps of fine, long-fiber cotton through the melted wax and lay them quickly flat upon oiled paper to cool. For lips of mammals cut narrow strips of the wax. Heat an upholstering spindle and with it repeatedly heated, melt the wax and cotton into crease of closed lips.

Melt thin, flat pieces of the wax into depth of nostrils and very narrow strips in eyelids.

When all the wax is placed, model it into shape with a smooth, wedge-ended bit of pine wood. To clean out wax that ran into the hair by melting, apply alcohol with a bit of cloth, scratch the waxy hair loose with finger nail and rub the crumbled wax out with the bit of alcohol dampened cloth. This leaves lips, eyelids, and nostrils neatly finished. Apply thin varnish to nose, edge of eyelids, and bare parts of lips that show. For mounting a mammal with open mouth, follow same note given in making a whole head for rug.

To make a small mammal cabinet skin, remove the skin as for mounting except that legs are severed at elbow and knee and soles of feet are split only to allow of poisoning.

Poison with dry a.r.s.enic. Wire tail same as in mounting. Wrap leg bones with cotton, tow, or excelsior according to size of specimen. Turn the skin back over a core of one of these materials, wrapped upon a splinter or stick, to size of natural body, but somewhat flatter. Sew up abdominal incision neatly. Catch the lips together with two or three st.i.tches. Lay specimen, belly down, upon a soft-wood board. Pin fore paws alongside of the face and hind feet alongside of tail.

When this is done press specimen until it is slightly flattened and set aside to dry. With each specimen preserve the perfect skull when possible, date on which taken, locality, any note of interest observed at the time (and add collector's name).

In using dry a.r.s.enic, apply with a small brush, using no grease on the hands.

PREPARING AND MOUNTING GAME FISHES AND SMALL REPTILES

CHAPTER IV

PREPARING AND MOUNTING GAME FISHES AND SMALL REPTILES

For the purpose of mounting, fishes and reptiles must be fresh, and the fresher the better. In beginning this chapter it may be well to state a simple way to keep fish for a short period before skinning and mounting, as sportsmen afield will not always be able immediately to prepare specimens taken.

First, while the fish is perfectly fresh, remove the viscera. If the fish is to be mounted upon a panel for wall decoration, make the incision along middle of poorest looking side, full length from gill to tail fin.

If the specimen is to stand upon a pedestal of polished wood, with supporting rods from the belly, make the incision along center of belly full length. To prevent decay, stir three or four drops of forty per cent solution of formalin into a quart of water.

Squeeze a cloth from this, leaving it pretty moist, and wrap the fish in it, giving the wet cloth close contact with the skin. Do not apply formalin inside any skin to be used for mounting. Never eat the flesh of a fish thus kept.

Before skinning the fish, make careful outlines over him, both side and top views. When skin is removed make outlines of skinned carca.s.s.

Handle a fish very carefully when skinning and cleaning, moving the specimen about or bending as little as possible during the entire operation. Lay the head to your left. Open the skin with scissors and make one long clean cut.

Lift edges of the skin and peel from flesh with a sharp knife or scalpel. Cut off base of fins, when encountered, with scissors or bone snips. Trim out most of skull with knife and bone snips, removing eyes from inside. Be sure to sc.r.a.pe all flesh from cheek inside of gill cover.

Remove flesh and fat from inside of skin with sc.r.a.per, working from tail toward head. Sc.r.a.pe out with point of small knife blade the flesh that runs out thin over tail-fin bones.

This completes the skinning operation. The cleaned skin may be poisoned to advantage with either dry or solution a.r.s.enic, brushed in well.

If the specimen is opened on the side for panel mounting and we wish to follow a very simple method in mounting, one that is quite as practical as it is simple, we must take a different step than outline sketches before skinning. This is to make a complete body and head cast of the best side in plaster of paris. This does not include the fins. To make the cast neatly, lay the fish, best side up, in a slight hollow in a box of clean, damp sand. Pack the sand up under the fish body smoothly so that more than half of him rises in cameo style from the smooth surface.

Make up enough plaster to do the cast at once. To mix plaster properly, sprinkle it into the dish of water until a little will begin to stand out dry above the surface. Then with a spoon sunk deep in it, gently stir to evenness. It is then ready to pour. Before doing this, jar the pan upon the table a time or two to cause any possible bubbles to rise.

Pour evenly over the fish, or better still, dip it on with the spoon.

The plaster should be thick enough to barely flow for making a proper cast.

The pectoral fins are simply laid flat to the side in making the cast.

Allow the cast to set hard before lifting it and removing the fish.

Trim off the overlapping edge so that no undercut remains.

The cleaned and poisoned skin should lay in damp cloth over one night and is then laid in accurate place back in the cast. Pour it nearly full of medium thick plaster of paris, carefully mixed free of bubbles.

Settle a board, cut to approximate body outline but much smaller, into the unset plaster and press the flap edges of the skin back together over the board, molding edge of back and belly to round back away from trimmed edge of mold. This must be all done with accuracy before the plaster sets, but you will find it gives enough time. Do not work in a strung-up, nervous way.

When the plaster is set hard, remove fish from mold, hold it upon palm of left hand and tack edges of skin to back-board. (For general details of this method see Fig. 21).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 21.]

Screw the specimen to a piece of board and adjust fins, carding them over little blocks and holding the cards with sharp toilet pins until drying is completed.

See that the jaws set right. They should have gone into the mold in proper relation to each other. Dig out the plaster in eye socket on show side and set eye in a little fresh plaster.

A simple method of making a modelled mannikin for fish follows:

Have the freshly skinned body or sketches of same at hand. Cut a soft-wood board core, making it some smaller than outline of carca.s.s.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 22.]

Anchor into this two rigid supporting wires or rods as shown in Fig. 22.

Upon this board core wrap strongly and smoothly with thread or small cord a quant.i.ty of manila fiber to same shape of body but one-half to three-quarters inch smaller than the body. Over this apply plaster of paris and manila fiber (dipping the fiber and laying it on) to approximate size of natural body. When this is set hard, pare it smoothly into outlines of natural shape and gouge out slight grooves for fin bases to set into. (See Fig. 23.).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 23.]

Mannikins of this type should be dried out as quickly as possible and sh.e.l.laced before applying the skin. Apply the fish skin with a paste of compo. No. I. Card the fins as in Fig. 24.

Fill the face through mouth and eyes with plaster of paris with a little chopped manila fiber worked into it. Use a slight amount of glue in the water to prevent rapid setting of the plaster. Hold face in place until set, with light wrapping of soft cord, using care that it does not crease soft parts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 24.]

Special fish eyes may be procured at any dealers in taxidermists'

supplies. As the last detail of mounting, set the eyes. In all kinds of specimens use a size of eyes that pa.s.s through the lids easily without the need of stretching to admit them. A panel-fish needs but one eye as a rule.

When the specimen is dry apply a coat of thin sh.e.l.lac as a filler to the surface to paint upon. This filler should be very thin and leave only a suggestion of gloss.