Equipment scalpels, dissecting scissors, bone scissors, tweezers, pliers, needle and thread, galvanized iron wire, cotton wool, bamboo silk, artificial eye, specimen seat plate, label, tape measure, arsenic paste, talcum powder, sulfur powder, putty, etc.

The formula of arsenic is: 50 grams of arsenic, 30 grams of camphor and 0/50 grams of soap/kloc. Cut the soap into small pieces, add water and boil it into paste in a ceramic container, then add arsenic powder and camphor powder and stir.

prepare

1. The selection of specimen materials requires that feathers are intact, not polluted by blood, and fresh or not old after death. If it has been contaminated by blood, you can gently wash it with cotton dipped in water, and then sprinkle some talcum powder to absorb the water.

2. Observation record First, observe the overall shape, the posture of wings, the color of mouth, eyes and feet, and then record it as the basis for shaping and coloring. Then measure the length and thickness of the neck, the length of the trunk, the size of the bust and the length of the wings, and record them. It is best to draw the shape of a bird for reference in plastic surgery.

3. The most convenient way of execution is suffocation. Hold the bird with your left hand, hold the bird's mouth and nose with your right thumb and forefinger, and hold the middle finger against the bird's throat. In a few minutes, the bird will suffocate. After the execution, put a small cotton ball in the beak and anus to prevent dirt from flowing out and polluting the feathers.

peel

(1) After the decapitated bird is cooled and its blood coagulates, the bird will lie on its back on the table, the feathers on its chest will be separated to both sides, and the skin will be gently cut from the middle line of the keel process with a scalpel (Figure 3-67). The feed should not be too deep until you see the meat, otherwise the liquid in the internal organs will stain the feathers. Sprinkle some talcum powder on the incision to prevent the mucus in the body from polluting the fingers and sticking to the feathers.

(2) Peel off the hind limb from the incision near the hind limb, pick up one side of the skin with tweezers, and slowly separate the muscle from the skin with the handle of a scalpel. When the skin and meat on the thigh are separated, hold the bird's leg and break it from the knee joint, push the leg muscles out of the incision, and cut it with scissors at the knee joint after exposing the knee joint, leaving a bird's leg without meat.

(3) Peel the tail. Peel your legs first, then your tail. Peel off the tail to the part where the tail feather shaft enters the muscle, and cut the tail vertebra with scissors. Be careful not to cut off the shaft root of the tail feather, or the tail feather will fall off.

(4) Skin the bird forward from the neck and head, peel the wings to the base, and cut them from the shoulder joint. Then peel off the neck and head. When a bird's neck is stripped of its white membrane, it is an ear hole. Put tweezers into the ear hole to separate the membrane. Never pull it hard. When you peel your eyes, you should first separate them from the surrounding tissues, so as not to hurt your skin. Then peel it forward until it reaches the bottom of the beak. Incision at the junction of cervical vertebra and skull. Remove all brains, eyeballs and tongues. The way to remove the brain is to put a cotton ball into the cranial cavity with tweezers and wrap the brain marrow.

(5) Peel off the wings to the base of the ulna, press the thumb nail on the ulna, and scrape off the shaft root of the flying feather attached to the ulna. If it is a big bird, it is not easy to scrape off the feather shaft root with nails, but you can scrape it off with the handle of tweezers. Specimens with wings spread should not scrape the shaft roots of flying feathers from the ulna.

(6) When the meat is removed, the Lippi of the whole specimen is exposed. Scrape off the remaining muscles and fat on the skin and bones with a scalpel.

5. Apply preservative In order to prevent corrosion and depilation, arsenic cream should be applied to the endothelium and the remaining bones. It should be painted all over the body, and there should be no missing places, such as eye sockets, ear holes, cranial cavities, shaft roots of tail feathers and phalanges. Arsenic is highly toxic, so be careful when using it. Be sure to wash your hands, especially your nails, to avoid poisoning.

6. Fill and shape immediately after filling and coating to avoid the skin from being difficult to operate after hardening.

Support the bird's body with galvanized iron wire with sufficient strength, bend one end and insert it into the cranial cavity, and plug it with cotton wool to prevent the head from shaking. The other end of the file extends from the tail base and bends into a flat ring at the tail feather shaft to support the tail feather.

Use two iron wires slightly longer than the wings, file the tips at both ends respectively, pass through the inside of the wing bone to the tip of the wing, and then cut off the redundant parts after passing through. The part left in the body is fixed on the iron wire running through the head and tail with wire cutters.

Then use two iron wires with proper length, one end pointed, to pass through the toes along the tibia. After passing through, a section will grow to fix the specimen. The other end is fixed on the iron wire running through the head and tail with wire cutters. The thickness of the line depends on the ability to support the bird.

Put the bird skin supported by wire on the table and fill it with bamboo or cotton according to the original shape of the bird. First, a long strip of filler is clamped with tweezers as the muscle of the back of the body, which is filled by the tail, waist, back and its two sides in turn, so that the back of the specimen will not be uneven. Then fill the abdomen and legs with fillers. Secondly, filling the cranial cavity and the nape of the neck with long strips of filler can make the back and nape of the specimen full. Then properly fill some fillers on both sides of the neck. Then fill some fillers in the ribs and press the ulna to prevent loosening. Then clamp the strip filler and gradually fill the tail, the outer and lower sides of the legs and the center of the ventral surface of the tail. Finally, fill the sides of the chest and abdomen and the inside of the legs until they are close to the original size of the bird. Pay attention to be slightly fatter than the original shape of the bird to prevent the skin from shrinking and losing its original shape.

After filling, sew outward from the skin with a fine needle and thread. When sewing, the needle distance should not be too close, and the needle mouth should be slightly away from the edge of the incision. Rub the skin on both sides of the incision by hand, and do not pull the skin hard to prevent tearing.

Install an artificial eye after suture. Prosthetic eyes can be bought off-the-shelf, usually a flat glass ball with black paint on the middle of the back to indicate black eyes, and a wire handle that can be inserted into the eye socket. If there is no ready-made artificial eye, you can use glass buttons instead. When installing, first fill a small amount of putty in the eye socket, and then stick the artificial eye in the eye socket with universal glue. Before the artificial eye is installed, it should be colored according to the actual color of the bird eye.

7. Stereotyping and fixation The so-called stereotype means that the specimens are arranged in a certain posture when the birds fly and live, such as foraging, walking, standing and watching, taking off and flying.

First, comb the feathers all over the bird with tweezers and straighten them as much as possible. Then fiddle with the specimen into a certain posture, for example, in the wait-and-see posture, the bird stands upright, the tarsal bones of its feet are straight, and its head is slightly raised; In the flying posture, the head, neck and trunk are almost in a straight line, the wings are open, and the feet are retracted or straight back.

After the initial pose, the specimen can be fixed on the seat plate. The seat plate should have enough weight to prevent the sample from dumping after loading. First, measure the position corresponding to the distance between the two feet of the specimen on the sitting board, and drill two holes slightly thicker than the iron wire. Then, two iron wires passing through the bird's feet on the specimen are inserted into the holes respectively, and then pulled out from the back of the plate to be bent and fixed.

Finally, coat the feathers with sulfur powder to prevent insects from eating. Wrap a gauze strip around the bird three or five times to prevent the feathers from being blown up by the wind. Tie the bird's beak with cotton thread to prevent it from opening.

Put the specimen in a ventilated place to dry for two or three weeks, and then remove the gauze and cotton thread after drying. Colour the beak, crown, face and other parts according to the primary colors. Put a label on the seat board, indicating the name of the bird, the collection place and date.