ucans' bills, paring them down to the outer
layer, through which the subsequent artificially-introduced colour was
revealed.

It would, no doubt, be possible to introduce colour into combs and
wattles, and also into the bills of some species of birds by
subcutaneous injections of various dyes when the specimen was fresh,
but as all taxidermists are not skilled anatomists, and have not too
much time to spare in doing what is--at best--but an unsatisfactory
and unpractical method, I may relieve their anxiety by saying at once
that the difficulty attendant on shrinkage of the integument may be
avoided by using wax, with which to thinly paint the large bills of
some birds, and the legs of all, restoring also the fleshy appearance
of wattles, etc.

Let us take one or two representative birds--first, an eagle, to work
upon, Premising that your bird is finished and dry, and that you have
previously accurately copied into your note-book the colours of the
soft parts, you will begin by brushing over the parts to be coloured
with a very little turpentine. Next, heat in a pipkin, or "patty-pan,"
some beeswax, into which a little common resin has been powdered, just
sufficient to harden the wax under the point of brittleness; apply
this with camel-hair brushes of different sizes to the eyelids (the
eye being in and fixed), the superciliary ridge, the cere, the gape,
and all over the bill, and legs, and feet, regulating the thickness of
the wax thus--very thin over the bill and eyelids, a little thicker
upon the cere, ridge, and gape, and quite thick upon the legs and
feet; so much so, indeed, in places on the latter, as to necessitate
carving up with tools to reproduce the underlying shrunken scutes, etc.
This, of course, is a delicate operation, involving practice and
artistic perception of form.

Remove all superfluous wax by paring with curved awls of various
sizes, and rubbing down with rag wetted in turpentine. Some parts of
the legs may be treated with hot irons (large wires, old awls, knives,
etc.). When the wax is sufficiently cold, which it will be in a quarter
of an hour after finishing, commence colouring, by using the colours
direct from the tubes, with as little admixture of "turps" as
possible. [Footnote: Winsor and Newton, Rowney, or Roberson, are some
of the best makers of these.] Note the different tints--quite three
shades of yellow upon the cere, four or five upon the bill itself, and
perhaps half-a-dozen upo