Part 14 (2/2)

Remember that at first the squares of the two pairs are set on exactly opposite each other, by means of the single bolt for each pair. Insert the upper end of each leg iron, screw the upper nut down firmly, then lift the half-made animal and stand it on its legs. Being free to move, the legs are very shaky, and you proceed at once to put them in position. You now adjust the legs according to your original design, bore holes in the rough pedestal for the lower ends of the rods to pa.s.s through, and s.h.i.+ft and change the different members, now here, now there, until you are satisfied that the leg's are in precisely the right att.i.tudes. If the leg that is stepping out in front is too short, run up the two nuts at the square, and thus make the leg an inch or two longer. Those that are too long are easily shortened by s.h.i.+fting their nuts lower down. You have such absolute control over the legs that you can s.h.i.+ft and change them just as much as you please, and that very easily. If the whole animal is coupled too short or too long, it is but five minutes' work to take out a bolt, bore another hole, and s.h.i.+ft the forelegs farther forward or back. When everything is perfectly to your liking, tighten up every nut to its very tightest, and insert screws through the screw-holes that have been provided in the long arm of each square. Each leg is now a fixture.

The great beauty of this method, which appears to its greatest perfection in the construction of a manikin, lies in the fact that you have, from first to last, the most perfect control over the different parts of the entire animal. When you discover as you proceed that something is wrong, it is an easy matter to change it, provided the skin has not been put on the manikin.

In putting together an animal with the legs in the skin, you are necessarily troubled somewhat by the skin of the body, which hinders the turning of your wrench, etc.; but all such difficulties exist only to be overcome.

Put the neck irons through the skull, and fasten the inner end of each to the body board, as shown in the tiger manikin, or in any other solid way you prefer. As to the tail, ditto, and when the att.i.tude is perfect, and all parts fastened together, then, and not until then, anoint the inside of the skin with a.r.s.enical soap, all that it will hold, and give it time to be absorbed. Put the head in position by bending the neck irons, place the feet in position, and tighten the nuts under the pedestal. Now turn the animal upside down, put a rope under each end of the pedestal, and hang the whole affair up to the ceiling, or to a beam, by means of the ropes, so that it will swing clear of the floor.

Next sew up the skin of the abdomen and breast, and proceed to fill the neck, shoulders, and hind-quarters with soft straw. Oat straw is the best, if you can get it. If you can procure no soft straw, then have a boy take your wheat straw, bunch by bunch, and with a mallet pound it upon a block to crush it and make it soft. In filling the animal, the first thing to do is to fill it out at all points, loosely at first, to get the general proportions. The skin should not touch your iron squares or the body board at any point, for if it does, something is wrong. At first you will work with your large wooden fillers, but as the straw gets packed, and the wooden tool will not go through it, take your iron fillers. No matter how hard straw may be packed, with a burrowing, twisting motion you can force that wedge-pointed instrument through the straw so as to reach any point that needs more filling out.

Be careful about the line of the back, and keep it exactly in place, along the centre of the body, and always at the highest point. Do not let the back line of a feline animal, especially a tiger or a leopard, get down upon one side, as will be sure to happen if you are not watchful. When the outline of the back is fixed, then fill out the breast and abdomen, and get the lower line of the body just as it should be. As you proceed with all this, keep sewing up the skin from time to time until only two holes remain, one at the breast and one between the hind legs well back. Now take the animal down, stand it upon the floor, cut slits in the sides, as directed in the previous section, and through them finish the filling and shaping of the body.

All this takes work, hard work, intelligent work, and a great deal of it.

Make the body hard and firm, and as smooth on the outside as Nature does.

To secure smoothness, and to lower the unnatural k.n.o.bs that are sure to appear, beat the animal from time to time with a flat club. When all is done, fill in the last bit of straw at the various holes, sew them up strongly but neatly with stout linen twine, or ”gilling thread,” well waxed, and dress the fur. This will be treated elsewhere in a separate section, as also will the treatment of the head.

CHAPTER XVII.

MOUNTING LARGE MAMMALS: THE CONSTRUCTION OF MANIKINS.

SECTION III. SHORT-HAIRED OR HAIRLESS MAMMALS, AND OTHERS OF GREAT SIZE.--_Examples: Lion, tiger, zebra, horse, giraffe, bison and buffalo, camel, all deer and antelopes; elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, tapir, etc._

Of the numerous processes described in this work there are two which I must mention as being distinctively and particularly my own. One is the general use of clay as a filling material, and the other is the evolution and development of the clay-covered manikin, on the principles now to be described and ill.u.s.trated. Already this method of mounting quadrupeds has been quite generally adopted by the new school of American taxidermists, and I think it is destined to fill our museums with more perfect mounted mammals than the rest of the world can show. I have always willingly taught the advantages of the clay-covered manikin, and the various processes involved in its construction, to every enterprising taxidermist who desired to learn it, and it was my intention to have published a full description of it years ago. Now it comes as a sort of ”farewell performance,” and ”positively the last appearance.”

Among taxidermists, the term _manikin_ is applied to the made up figure of an animal over which a skin is to be adjusted, and made to counterfeit the actual form and size of a living animal. While it is well adapted to the successful treatment of mammals, reptiles, and fishes in general, it is impossible to employ it in mounting bird skins unless they are very badly torn, and require to be put together a piece at a time, or else are of the very largest size. The worst torn and mutilated bird skin can be put together on a manikin with perfect success, provided the skin is all present.

Speaking from my own experience, I must say that my clay-covered manikin process seems to possess important and undisputed advantages over all other methods I have ever seen employed or described for the mounting of not only the most difficult mammalian subjects, but also reptiles of many kinds, and fishes. By it the most perfect results attainable by the taxidermic art are not only possible, but may be achieved without even a risk of failure save through lack of anatomical knowledge. Nearly all the mechanical difficulties which beset the other methods are eliminated, and the result becomes chiefly a question of knowledge and artistic sense. By this method, I have successfully mounted such mammals as the following: Elephant,[9]

American bison, polar bear, zebra, tiger, puma, elephant seal, hairless Mexican dog, etc. The last-named specimen was in compet.i.tion against the elephant in a compet.i.tive exhibition, and I learned afterward from the judges that it came near wresting the grand prize from its lordly compet.i.tor. This fact is mentioned to show that the process was equally successful in the treatment of a thick-hided elephant and a small dog with a skin as thin as writing-paper, and utterly dest.i.tute of hair. A plaster cast of the unskinned body of the dog was exhibited with the mounted specimen, to enable the observer to judge of the success of the process.

The unchallenged superiority of the clay-covered manikin process is due to the following reasons:

1. The absolute control the operator is able to exercise over the form of his subject from first to last, without prejudice to the safety of the skin to be mounted.

2. The possibility of working out anatomical details which it is useless to attempt by other methods.

3. The absolute permanency of the form produced.

4. The ability of the operator to place his subjects in att.i.tudes so difficult that by ordinary methods they would be unattainable.

5. The most perfect preservation of the skin and its covering from damage by excessive handling, beating, and wetting.

6. The absolute perfection of form and att.i.tude which is attainable by this method only.

Until you have fully learned the principles of manikin-making, do not attempt to mount by this process a skin that has come to you with no measurements nor leg bones. Choose for your first attempt a good-sized dog or sheep, or some quadruped of similar size which you have _in the flesh_, and from which you can take a full series of outlines, measurements, casts, etc. I can probably teach you as well as any living man how to proceed when you have no measurements whatever, and will give you a few hints presently; but now I say, you _must_ have your first subject in the flesh. It is then within your power to secure to yourself all possible advantages in what you are about to do.

It is desirable to take the usual measurements before the skin is removed, but by all means make another series of the skinned body and limbs. In skinning, disjoint the leg bones at the carpal joint,[10] which leaves only the bones of the foot attached to the skin. When the skin is put on for the last time, this joint must be re-articulated with two wires. When the skin is out of the way, you can take the length of the body from the back part of the thigh to the point of the shoulder; the distance between elbow and knee, from the elbow to the top of the shoulder; the circ.u.mference and diameter of the body, neck, and limbs, at various points; the depth of the body, etc. You can also measure from the highest point of the head of the femur to a similar point on the humerus, and when the hind legs have been cut off, you can easily determine the proper length for your iron squares by measuring between the two hip sockets (_os inominata_). Observe, now, if you never did before, that the front edges of the tibia and the ulna have no flesh whatever upon them, nor has the angle of the elbow, the knee-cap, nor the front of the metacarpal bones.

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