Page:The American Boy's Handy Book edition 1.djvu/269

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236
Autumn.

to the first joint; lay the bones bare, removing all the meat. Paint with arsenical soap and return them to their places. Go through the same process with the legs and rump; and after all flesh and fatty matter have been removed, paint the whole interior of the skin thoroughly with arsenical soap, and you are ready to begin the operation of

Stuffing.
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Fig. 149.Owl-Skin and False Body.

Take a piece of straight wire (size 20) equal in length to the measurement you made from root of tail to top of head; wind about it a bunch of excelsior (straw will answer as a substitute for excelsior shavings); secure this to the wire by repeated wrappings of stout thread, and mould the bundle into a shape resembling the bird's body; regulate the girth by the measurement you noted down for that purpose before you commenced the skinning process. When you have completed the artificial body there will, of course, be a portion of the wire still bare, which represents the neck. File the extremity of this wire to a sharp point, then force it diagonally up through the skull to the top, where it must be clinched; wrap the neck wire between the artificial body and the head with cotton batting (Fig. 149). Now draw the skin back so as to cover the artificial neck and body.

The eyelids must be carefully pulled in place over the cotton in the eye-holes, or orbits; pull the eyelids up nicely, to

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