The Chautauquan, Vol. 03, June 1883Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
History
The Chautauquan, Vol. 03, June 1883
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle
Chautauqua Institution -- Periodicals; Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle -- Periodicals
Introduce the cotton for an artificial body by means of a little stick
like a knitting needle, and without any other aid or substance than
that of this little stick and cotton, your own genius must produce
those swellings and cavities, that just proportion, that elegance and
harmony of the whole so much admired in animated nature, so little
attended to in preserved specimens. After you have introduced the
cotton, sew up the orifice you originally made in the belly, beginning
at the vent. And from time to time, till you arrive at the last stitch,
keep adding a little cotton, in order that there may be no deficiency
there. Lastly, dip your stick into a solution of corrosive sublimate,
and put it down the throat three or four times, in order that every
part may receive it.
When the head and neck are filled with cotton quite to your liking,
close the bill as in nature. A little bit of bees wax at the point of
it will keep the mandibles in their proper place. A needle must be
stuck into the lower mandible perpendicularly. Bring 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
fastener.
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 bird’s bill, 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 versa_; and if
the head is wished to be projecting forward, it has only to be brought
nearer the front of the box, humoring 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 tied to the end of the box, mid fastened to the
beak, to prevent the face from looking too much upward. If the wings
are wished elevated, support them with cotton; and if it be very high,
place a piece of stick under them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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