itable for foxes and larger dogs. 7 will
do for eagles. 5, 3, and 1 approach so nearly to bars as to be fit
only for the larger animals.

As a rule, however, practice enables a person to use smaller sized
wires than appears possible to him at first. I would here also
recommend that "galvanised" be used instead of the common "annealed"
wire (never use "hard" wire) for all purposes, excepting for large
animals. Its advantages are very great, as I can personally testify.

If you decide on mounting your bird on a turned stand, you will, if
not possessing a lathe yourself, have to call in the assistance of a
turner, who will, for a small sum, turn the requisite stands, which
may be either in mahogany, boxwood, ebony, or ivory, according to your
taste and the length of your pocket. If, on the contrary, you decide
to ultimately mount your specimen in a case or a shade, you had better
provide yourself with some wire of a suitable strength, and some tow,
which latter you will proceed to wrap round the wire to within a
couple of inches of one end--forming, in fact, an artificial twig,
which you may bend to any shape, riveting the unbound end through a
piece of wood of sufficient weight to balance the bird when set up.

Having, then, before you, as the first indispensable adjunct, the
turned stand or artificial twig (a natural one does in some cases),
the stuffing irons, file, crooked awl, pliers, scissors, wire, tow,
needle and thread, pins, and some fine darning cotton, which is called
"wrapping cotton," you proceed to business thus: The bird being
skinned, all the flesh cleaned out, and well dressed with the
preservative up to the point previously described--leg bones being
wrapped and wings being tied--lay the bird down on a clean piece of
paper.

Having selected the wire of two sizes, of a suitable thickness, the
thinner for the body wire and the other for the leg wires, cut the
three, with the aid of the pliers, a little longer than the body and
legs respectively, pointing each wire at one end with a file--not
rounding the points, but leaving them with cutting edges.

Taking up the thicker or body wire in the right hand and some tow in
the left, commence at about an inch from the point to tightly and
neatly bind on the tow in the shape of the neck, and of nearly the
same length that the neck was before being cut off--that is to say,
making the artificial neck somewhat longer than the neck of the skin
(if properly taken