The taxidermist's manual, or, The art of collecting, preparing and preserving objects of natural history. : For the use of travellers, conservators of museums, and private collectors. ... / By Captain Thomas Brown, F.L.S.

  • Brown, Thomas, 1785-1862.
Date:
MDCCCXXXIII. [1833]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The taxidermist's manual, or, The art of collecting, preparing and preserving objects of natural history. : For the use of travellers, conservators of museums, and private collectors. ... / By Captain Thomas Brown, F.L.S. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    place. A needle must be stuck into the lower mandible per- pendicularly, you will shortly see the use of it. Bring1 also 'the feet together by a pin, and then run a thread through the ‘knees, by which you may draw them to each other as near as you judge proper. Nothing now remains but to add the eyes, with your little stick make a hollow in the cotton within the orbit and introduce the glass eyes into it. Adjust the orbit to them as in nature, and that requires no other fastner.” j Great attention must be paid to the size of the orbit, which will receive within it an object much larger than the eye, so that it must be drawn together with a very small delicate needle and thread, at the part farthest from the beak. A small quantity of the solution is now applied to the bill, orbits, and feet. Take any ordinary box large enough for holding the bird, and fill three-fourths of it from the top at one end, and the other end forming an inclined plane; make a hollow in it sufficient for the reception of the bird, place it in the box with its legs in a sitting posture ; take a piece of cork into which three pins have been stuck for legs, like a three-footed stool; place it under the bill of the bird, and the needle which was formerly run through the bill is stuck into the cork, which will act as a support to the bird’s head. If the neck is wished to be lengthened, put more cotton under the cork, or vice ver- sa ; and if the head is wished to be projecting forward, it has only to be brought nearer the front of the box, humouring the cork, so as to place it in the position you require. As the back part of the neck shrinks more in drying than the fore part, a thread must be tyed to the end of the box, and fastened to the beak, to prevent the face from looking too much upwards. If the wings are wished elevated, support them with cotton; and if to be very high, place a piece of stick under them. Should you desire to expand the wings, the order of the feathers must be reversed, commencing with the two middle ones. When perfectly dry, place them in the natural order, and they will ever afterwards continue as you wish them. If the crest is wished to be erect, the feathers must be moved in a contrary direction for a day or two, when they will soon take the position wished for.