stag, may be substituted for the natural skull, unless the teeth, etc.
are required to be shown. Model teeth carved from bone, or from wood,
subsequently coloured, are sometimes inserted in model heads, but this
is not recommended.

The next part of our theme deals with mounting skins from the "flat,"
when no body or skeleton is forthcoming, and is practised by masters
of the art, who know by experience the various positions assumed by
their subjects when in a state of Nature. By this means large animals,
such as tigers, lions, bears, etc, may be mounted from skins sent home
from abroad.

The skin having been relaxed and thinned (see Chapter X.), is put over
the model in exactly the same manner as described for the otter. The
model is, however, now determined by the size of the skin, which, when
perfectly soft, is folded together, legs and all, and shaped on the
floor of the studio, in somewhat the position required; from this a
rough tracing is made with red chalk on boards kept for that purpose,
or on sheets of brown paper. These are afterwards corrected by eye, or
by the aid of smaller drawings or good prints.

Inside this large finished tracing trace an irregularly-shaped long
oval, quite two inches smaller all the way round than the tracing of
the skin itself. Cut this out in stiff paper, and from it shape up one
or two boards of 1 in. to 1.5 in. deal, jointed together on edge; to
this "body-board" bolt by staples the four strong rods representing
the fore and hind limb bones. Let each have a right-angled crook where
they first spring from the board, to represent the scapular and pelvic
arches, then bend each one (more or less) at each joint (see Plates
III. and IV.) according to the attitude desired.

Insert these rods at the feet through a strong base made of 1 in. or
1.5 in. boards, remembering that, if the projected attitude of your
model demands the fore-feet raised, you must nail "quartering" on end,
to which attach a platform of board of the requisite height. Fix two
medium sized or one very strong rod for the neck, and one moderately
strong for the tail. In a large animal--and I am assuming that we are
now engaged on a lion--the wire ribs may be replaced by sections of
0.5 in. board, cut as in Fig. 33, and nailed vertically on each side
of the body-board. On the half-rounded surfaces of these, laths are
tacked, and afterwards covered with straw, or plastered over, just as
a plasterer would finish a pa