for inspection when wanted.

Photos of dead animals are not particularly valuable but casts always
are; make them whenever opportunity offers. Not so much casts of the
entire specimen as casts of various details.

Get a set of moulds of the noses of say deer, moose, domestic cattle and
sheep and keep the resulting casts for reference. Their value will be
apparent when mounting heads. Any sketches, however rough, will also be
of use.

The circus and zoo will furnish feast days for the student of animal
anatomy and pencil and camera may be used freely at both with the
assurance of the best of treatment from officials and keepers.

A visit to the meat market will afford opportunity for study of the
muscular system of the domestic animals.

The sculptor builds up his clay model unhampered by fur, feathers or
bones and chisels out his statuary on a scale determined by himself
while the taxidermist must not only construct his figures or manikins in
correct proportions, but make them fit a certain skin. Hence it behooves
him even more than the sculptor to be well grounded in at least the main
principles of the anatomy of animals.

Birds in particular are a fruitful source of study, muffled as they are
in feathers, when stripped presenting a very different appearance. To
illustrate the value of a knowledge of avian anatomy I will mention an
incident occurring many years ago at a large taxidermy establishment.

[Illustration: WATER FOWL HEAD.]

Two of the frugal minded workmen having skinned a large plump duck laid
the body minus head, feet, and wings aside to furnish a dinner next day.
The porter regarding same as his perquisite abstracted and hid it. The
first owners discovering it substituted the body of a large horned owl
then in the process of mounting and so made all concerned happy. The
porter bragging loudly next day of the fine duck he had done them out
of, they were able to convince him of the truth only by exhibiting the
duck remains as a part of their lunch.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

CASTING AND MODELLING.

One of the leading authorities in this country has aptly said, "The
ideal taxidermist must be a combination of modeller and anatomist,
naturalist, carpenter, blacksmith and painter. He must have the eye of
an artist and the back of a hod carrier." This should not dismay the
beginner for such casting and modelling as will be indispensable are
comparatively simple.

In order to cast we must have molds