We have now reached one of the most interesting features of all taxidermic work. There is no royal road to success in this direction, nor aught else that leads thither save hard study, hard work, and an artistic sense of the eternal fitness of things.

The large FelidÆ (tiger, lion, leopard, etc.) are the finest subjects for the taxidermist that the whole animal kingdom can produce. They offer the finest opportunities for the development of muscular anatomy, and the expression of the various higher passions. The best that I can do with the space at my disposal for this subject is to offer the reader a few hints on how to produce certain expressions, illustrated by an accurate drawing from one of my mounted specimens.

In the first place, strive to catch the spirit of your subject.

It frequently happens that the attitude desired for a feline or other carnivorous animal is one expressive of anger, rage, or defiance. For a single specimen, the most striking attitude possible is that of a beast at bay. Unless a carnivorous animal is to be represented in the act of seizing something, the mouth should not be opened very wide. It is a common fault with taxidermists to open the jaws of such an animal too widely, so that the effect striven for is lost, and the animal seems to be yawning prodigiously, instead of snarling. Open the jaws a moderate distance, indicating a readiness to open wider without an instant's warning. The thick, fleshy part of the upper lip is lifted up to clear the teeth for action, and the mustached portion is bunched up until it shows two or three curving wrinkles, with the middle of the curve upward. This crowds the nostril opening together, and changes its shape very materially. In most carnivora, but most strikingly so in bears, the end of the lower lip falls away slightly from the lower incisors.

In old lions and tigers the face wrinkles pretty much all over, especially across the nose and under the eyes. In all the FelidÆ the opening of the eye changes most strikingly. When angry, the eye of a ruminant animal opens its widest, and shows portions of the eyeball that are never seen otherwise. In the carnivora, the reverse is the case. As if to protect the eye from being clawed or bitten, the upper eyelid is drawn well down over the ball, as seen in Plate I. (Frontispiece), and the eyebrows are bunched up and drawn near together until the scowl becomes frightful. The decks are further cleared for action in the disposition of the ears. Instead of leaving them up ready to be bitten off, they are "unshipped," and laid back as far as possible, close down upon the neck, and out of harm's way. The tongue also pulls itself together, contracts in the middle, curves up at the edges, and makes ready to retire farther back between the jaws at the instant of seizure.

All this time the body is not by any means standing idly and peacefully at ease. The attitude must match the expression of the face, or the tragedy becomes a farce. The body must stand firmly on its legs, alert, ready either to attack or defend, head turned, body slightly bent, or slightly crouching, and, unless the animal is walking, with the tail switching nervously from side to side. If the animal is walking forward, the tail should be held still and in the same vertical plane as the body. The finest attitude for a large carnivor is one which represents it at bay, and awaiting attack. A cat is an animal of a thousand attitudes. Very many of them, if reproduced exactly in a mounted specimen, would look very uncouth and devoid of beauty; therefore, choose those which are at once characteristic and pleasing to the eye.

Modeling an Open Mouth.—In mounting a feline animal with mouth open and teeth showing, beware what you do, or you will make the animal laughing instead of snarling. This is often done! In fact, in my younger days I did it once myself—but without any extra charge.

In modeling an open mouth, first fill the inside of the lips with clay, and also back them up underneath with clay until the lips, when fixed in position, have the expression desired. The inner edge of the hairless portion of the lower lip should fit up close against the jaw bone, and perhaps be tacked down upon it temporarily. Very often it is necessary to hold the lips in position, while drying, by sewing through the edges and passing the thread across the jaws from side to side. The skin of the nose must be fully backed up with clay, so that no hollows are left into which the skin can shrink away in drying. It is often desirable to hold the end of the lower lip up to its place, while drying, by driving a small wire nail through it into the bone.

Do not fill the mouth full of clay, for it must be borne in mind that the final modeling of the soft parts of the mouth must be done in papier-machÉ. It is no small task to dig out of a mouth a quantity of clay and tow after it has become hard; therefore, leave a place for the tongue.

A head must be thoroughly dry and shrunken before the mouth can be finished and made permanent. In drying, the lips draw away from the gums somewhat, which is just as it should be. The first step is to clear away the dry clay from around the teeth and lips, and get everything clean and ready for the machÉ. Then make some fine papier-machÉ, as described elsewhere, that is sticky enough to adhere firmly to smooth bone, and of such consistency that it works well in modeling. With this, and your modeling spatulas and other tools of steel, zinc, or hard wood (see Figs. 39-44), cover the jaw bones to replace the fleshy gums, and fill up to the edges of the lips so that they seem to be attached to the gums as in life. Coat the roof of the mouth, and model its surface into the same peculiar corrugations that you saw in the mouth immediately after death.

This is slow work. It requires a good eye, a skilful, artistic touch, and unlimited patience. If you are an artist, prove it now by the fidelity with which you copy nature in this really difficult work.

In modeling the surface of papier-machÉ, you must have a clean, well-polished modeling-tool, like Fig. 42, and by wetting it now and then so that it will slip over the surface, your work can be made very smooth.

Next comes the tongue. The only perfect tongue for a feline animal is a natural tongue, skinned, and stuffed with clay. The papillÆ on the tongue of a lion, tiger, leopard, or puma simply defy imitation, and after many experiments with many different animals I found that with the real tongue, and with that only, one can reproduce nature itself and defy criticism. Of course, this is possible only when you have the animal in the flesh, and can cut out the tongue and preserve it in alcohol until you are ready to mount it.

To prepare a tiger's tongue, for example, first preserve the whole tongue in alcohol, for safe keeping. When ready to proceed, slit it open lengthwise underneath, and skin it carefully. Take a piece of sheet lead, cut it and hammer it into the right size and shape, and fit it in the mouth as nearly as possible in the shape the finished tongue is to have. By judicious hammering with the round end of a machinist's hammer you can give it any shape you desire. When it is just right, cover it with clay to replace the flesh of the tongue, treat the skin with arsenical soap, put it over, and sew it up. Now fit the tongue into the mouth, and by pressure with the fingers change its shape wherever necessary in order to make it fit exactly as you wish to have it. When finished, lay it aside to dry. The accompanying figures were drawn from the finished tongue of the tiger represented in Plate I., where it is seen in place.

When the tongue is dry it must be painted with oil colors, using a little turpentine so that the surface shall not be too glossy, nor have a varnished look. Vermilion and white are the best colors to use, and above all do not make the tongue or lips look like pink candy, or red flannel, or red sealing-wax. Call up the household cat at an early stage of the proceedings, and use her mouth as a model, whether she will or no. A patient old tabby is an invaluable ally in the mounting of feline animals of all sorts, and Towser will also help you out with your CanidÆ. When modeling the mouth or muscles of a gorilla or orang utan, catch the first amateur taxidermist you can lay your hands on—the wilder and greener the better—and use him as your model. Study him, for he is fearfully and wonderfully made. The way some of my good-natured colleagues used to pose for me as (partly) nude models at Ward's, when I once had a ten-months' siege with orangs, gorillas, and chimpanzees, was a constant source of wonder and delight to the ribald crew of osteologists who knew nothing of high art.

Fortunately the tongues of most large mammals are smooth, and are easily reproduced by using the same leaden core as described above, and covering it first with papier-machÉ, drying it, and coating with tinted wax, laid on hot with a small flat paint-brush called a "fitch." With small specimens it is not necessary to make the tongue as a separate piece, or put a leaden core in it. Fill into the mouth a sufficient quantity of papier-machÉ, pack it down, and then proceed to model the surface of it into a tongue, shaped to suit the subject. Such a tongue is, of course, a fixture in the mouth.

Cleaning Teeth.—Before finishing a mouth with wax, the teeth must be washed clean with a stiff brush. If they will not come out white enough to suit you, wash them with a solution of two parts muriatic acid and one part water, applied with a tooth-brush if possible. Let it stay on the teeth about a quarter of a minute, when it must be washed off with an abundance of clear water. If the acid stays on too long, it will destroy the entire outer surface (enamel) of the teeth.

Waxing a Mouth.—Of course it will answer, and sometimes quite well enough, perhaps, when a mouth has been handsomely and smoothly modeled in fine papier-machÉ, to sand-paper it and paint it over when dry with two or three coats of oil color. You can hardly do otherwise, in fact, when you are not prepared to work with wax. But the really fine way, however, is to coat your dry papier-machÉ with tinted wax as follows:

Procure from the nearest dealer in artists' materials some cakes of white wax. You must also have a small oil or gas stove, or a spirit-lamp, and rig above it a wire frame on which you can set your wax cup. The wax cups should be small, and made of pressed tin, so that they contain no soldered joints. The wax is to be applied hot, or at least quite warm, for bear in mind that if you heat your wax too hot it changes its color quite perceptibly, and makes it dark and yellow. Wax should always be clear and transparent, and when the excess of heat turns it yellow, throw it away.

Regulate the heat carefully, so as to make it gentle. Melt a small portion of a cake of wax in one of your clean tin cups, and if it is the tongue, roof of the mouth or gums, that you have to cover, color the wax a delicate flesh tint by putting into it a very little vermilion, or other suitable color, from your Windsor & Newton oil-color tube. Oil colors mix very well with hot wax; but in using it, it is necessary to keep the wax well stirred with the brush, or the color will settle to the bottom.

Take a clean, dry bristle brush, of the right size (the flat brushes are always best for wax), with a good, compact point, dip it into the hot wax, stir from the bottom, and then, before the wax on your brush has even two seconds in which to get cool, apply it to the surface to be covered, with a quick, dextrous touch, sweeping it on broadly to keep it from piling up and making the surface rough. This wax business requires genuine skill, and, after beginning, one must not be discouraged because it does not "go right" at first, but try, try again. After your hand has acquired the trick, the beauty of the results will amply repay your labor.

It is very difficult to change the surface of a coat of wax after it is once on; therefore try to get it right with the brush. Of course, if the color or surface does not suit you, scrape it all off, and "to 't again." To treat the roof of the mouth, the specimen must be turned upside down. At the point where the black lip joins the pink gums, the two colors can be nicely blended by letting the last layers of pink wax lap over a trifle, upon the black, so that the latter will show through the former here and there, and give the line of demarcation a mottled appearance, with the two colors thus blended together. Much can be done by taking advantage of the transparency of thin layers of wax when its color is light.

After the wax has cooled, something can be done to smooth the surface, and give it a very shiny appearance, by carefully scraping the surface over smoothly with the edge of a knife, or a sharp bone-scraper. The latter tool will be found of great value in modeling a mouth in papier-machÉ, and also in trimming up the wax after it has been applied.

Cleaning Glass Eyes.—Always have the glass eyes of a finished specimen faultlessly clean and well polished, to give the brilliancy of life. If paint gets on the glass, remove it with a drop of turpentine, and polish afterward with a bit of cotton cloth. Some of the old-fashioned taxidermists have the habit of smearing a lot of nasty lamp-black in the eyes of every mounted mammal, for what purpose no one knows—but possibly in imitation of actresses, some of whom have the same unaccountable trick, and a hideous one it is in its results, in both cases. There is only one point in its favor—it is the easiest way in the world to give an animal a black eye.