Part 5 (1/2)
_Thoroughness._--The principles to be observed in skinning the body are precisely the same as those given for small mammals. Remember that it is easier to take the skin off clean and free from flesh as you cut it from the animal, and can stretch it tight with your left hand in order to shave the flesh off clean, than it will be to clean the skin after it is off. An excess of flesh left on the skin means unnecessary weight, a waste of preservatives, and longer time in curing the skin. A clean, thin skin is more easily and quickly cured and carried than one badly taken off. My habit is to clean a skin so thoroughly in taking it off that no paring down is necessary before curing it--unless, indeed, it be the skin of an elephant or other pachyderm. When I once preserved the skin of a large, old elephant in an Indian jungle, I kept ten native chucklers at work upon it for three days, thinning it down to a portable degree.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 7.--Opening Cuts at Back of p.r.o.ng-horn Antelope's Head.]
_The Legs._--If the specimen is of medium size, _e.g._, not larger than a deer, disjoint the legs at shoulder and hip, and leave all the leg bones attached to the skin, just as with small mammals; but, of course, cutting off the flesh and tendons carefully. If the animal is larger than a deer, the skin would be too heavy and c.u.mbersome to handle if all the leg bones were left attached to it. Therefore, with your elk, moose, buffalo, etc., cut off the foreleg at the ”knee” (so called), and the hind leg at the hock-joint, leaving the calcaneum, or heel-bone, attached to the canon bone, and thus remaining with the skin. The bones from the two upper joints of the legs are to be cleaned of flesh, tied in a bundle, and sent with the skin--unless the collector happens to be travelling by pack train in mountainous country, far afield. In such a case we can forgive him for throwing away the large bones of the legs if he will only bring in the skin, skull, and lower leg bones all right. The point is, in mounting a skin we _must_ have leg bones--if not the real ones, then they must be counterfeits carved out of wood, to give shape to the legs, particularly at the joints. And he who tries it once will find it is a two or three days'
job to carve a large set of leg bones, even with patterns by which to work, to say nothing of having to evolve models from one's inner consciousness.
Therefore, I say, _save the leg bones_.
_Beware of Blood._--By all means keep the hair from getting b.l.o.o.d.y, but if you cannot possibly keep it clean, keep it as clean as you can. Remember that blood must be washed out on the spot, no matter how scarce water is, nor whether the mercury stand at 110 above zero, or 10 below. If a wound bleeds profusely, throw plenty of dry dirt or sand on the hair that has become b.l.o.o.d.y, to absorb the blood. The dirt can be knocked out with a stick, and it will take the blood with it. If the white hair of the p.r.o.ng-horn antelope once gets soaked with blood, it is impossible to remove all traces of it. The soft, tubular hairs get filled with blood wherever there is a break, and enough of it will always remain to mark the catastrophe. In the Bad Lands of Montana I once washed three long and bitterly cold hours on a fine antelope skin that had lain twenty-four hours with blood upon it, but had to give up beaten, at last, and throw the skin away.
_Shaping._--Since these directions will be used chiefly in preparing the skins of deer, antelope, and kindred ruminants, the accompanying ill.u.s.tration (Fig. 8) is given to show how such skins should be made up when they are to be preserved dry, either for study or for mounting. It is best to defer folding up a skin until it is partially dry and has begun to stiffen a little.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 8.--A Well-made Dry Deer Skin.]
SPECIAL AND EXCEPTIONAL DIRECTIONS.--_Apes and Monkeys._--If you are in the jungle, the chances are that you will have no plaster Paris with which to make casts, in which case you must make the sketching-pencil and tape-measure do double duty. With such a wonderful and characteristic form as a gorilla, chimpanzee, or orang-utan, you cannot study it too much, unless you study it until the skin spoils. Above all things, study every feature of the face, and also its expression, so that you can make a copy of it two years afterward which shall be both mathematically and artistically correct. If you have plaster Paris, fail not to take a mould of the face, and also of one hand and foot, so that later you can make casts. The same advice applies to the great baboons with their fearful and wonderful faces and ischial callosities, some of them gotten up with all the colors of the rainbow, and far more brilliancy. Remember that when the skin dries all those colors _totally disappear_, and the skin turns to the color of parchment. Therefore, out with your box of colors at once, and make a color-sketch of the face. If you have skill but no colors, or colors with no skill, then out with your ”Ridgway's Nomenclature of Colors,” make a large diagram or sketch of the head, and mark the names of the respective colors upon it. Whenever the skin of any animal has any noticeable color, record the fact in as definite terms as possible.
All the great anthropoid apes should have the opening-cut for the body made along the middle of the back, up to the back of the head, instead of along the abdomen and breast, which are generally but thinly haired, and on the throat are quite naked. By doing this, the sewed-up seam comes at the back of the mounted specimen, in the hair, and out of sight. With adult specimens of the gorilla, chimpanzee, and orang the skeleton is quite as valuable as the skin, therefore every bone must come forth and be carefully preserved. Skinning the fingers is a tedious task, and one which requires some skill, especially when it comes to working the end off so that the nail is left in its place in the skin, and without mutilation. But when the value of a skin and skeleton runs up into hundreds of dollars, you can well afford to spend a whole hour in skinning a hand, if you cannot do it in less time. The opening cuts for the hand and foot of any ape or monkey are to be made as shown by the dotted lines in the accompanying sketch of the foot of an orang-utan (Fig. 9). This is necessary even in skinning small quadrumanes which are to retain their leg bones, because the skin of each finger must be separated from the bone so that the preservative powder or liquid can get at the inside of it.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 9.--Foot of Orang-Utan, showing Opening Cuts.]
_The Eyes and Nose._--Be exceedingly careful in skinning the face. The eyes are deeply sunken in their sockets, and if you are not very careful your knife will make an ugly gash at the corner of the eye before you know it. A finger held in between the lids against the eyeball will be a safe guide.
Of course, you will cut the lips away at the gum, and split them open afterward from the inside to remove the flesh. And, of course, the proboscis of the baboon and the long-nosed monkey of Borneo must be skinned out quite to the tip while the specimen is fresh, or it will dry up horribly.
_The Ear._--The ear of a quadrumane, especially that of a chimpanzee, because of its great size, is a very miserable part to preserve, unless you have a salt-and-alum bath at hand. If the cartilage is entirely skinned out--itself a difficult thing to do--it will afterward be almost a practical impossibility to give the ear its proper shape. Therefore the cartilage must remain. The skin can be loosened from the cartilage at the back of the ear, however, which is a great gain. Do this, and insert a good quant.i.ty of powdered alum. Then paint the whole ear over on both sides with a.r.s.enical soap, and put on all the powdered alum that will stick--unless the skin is to go in the bath. In that case treat each ear to a little strong alum water for an hour or so.
FOOTNOTE:
[4] For detailed instructions in skinning large heads, see Chapter XIX.
CHAPTER VI.
COLLECTING SKINS OF SMALL BIRDS.
The lives of hundreds of thousands of wild birds have been sacrificed to no purpose by persons claiming to be ornithological collectors, and yet who had not the knowledge, skill, or industry to make up good bird skins. There are now in this country numerous large collections of bird skins that are a sight to behold. The ability to make up fine, clean, shapely, well-preserved skins, and make them rapidly also, is a prime requisite in anyone who aspires to be sent off to interesting ”foreign parts” to shoot, collect, and see the world--at the expense of someone else. An aspiring young friend of the writer, whose soul yearned to travel and ”collect,”
missed a fine opportunity to make a very interesting voyage on the _Albatross_, for the sole reason that with all his yearning he could not make good bird skins,--and it served him right for his lack of enterprise.
Let me tell you that, while twenty years ago any sort of a bird skin was acceptable to a museum, now such specimens must be first cla.s.s in order to be well received. Fine skins are _the rule_ now with curators and professional ornithologists, and poor ones the exception. Although the work itself is simple enough, it is no child's play to perform it successfully.
It is best for the beginner to learn first how to skin small birds, and make up their skins, and when he has mastered these details he is prepared to undertake the preparation of large specimens, and learn how to overcome the exceptional difficulties they present. To this end the present chapter will be devoted to setting forth the leading principles involved, which are most easily learned from small specimens.
We will first undertake the work of skinning a small bird--a robin, thrush, or blackbird, whichever you happen to have. If in skinning, skin-making, and mounting you master the robin, for example, which is the highest type of a bird, you will be well prepared for the great majority of the other members of the feathered tribe.
Shoot your specimen with as fine shot as possible, and not too much even of that, in order to avoid shooting its mandibles, feet, legs, and feathers to pieces. As soon as it is dead, plug the throat, nostrils, and _all wounds that bleed_, with bits of cotton, to keep the blood and other liquids from oozing out upon the feathers, and putting you to more serious trouble.
Carry the specimen home in any careful way you choose, so as to avoid rumpling or soiling the plumage. By all means let your first practice be upon clean birds.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 10.--Names of the External Parts of a Bird.[5] 1, Crown; 2, forehead; 3, nostrils (or cere); 4, upper mandible; 5, lower mandible; 6, throat; 7, neck; 8, spurious quills; 9, occiput; 10, ear; 11, nape; 12, breast; 13, middle coverts; 14, large coverts; 15, belly; 16, tibia; 17, tarsus; 18, inner toe; 19, middle toe; 20, outer toe; 21, thumb; 22, under-tail coverts; 23, tail; 24, primaries; 25, secondaries; 26, tertiaries.]