Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 2434 Sonia ([-])

Fortunately, this period of time is not wasted, and it can be used to continue repairing sailfish specimens.But before that, she had a little natural history to teach.

She neatly cut open the skinned bird body, and took out the stomach and crop from the inside.

A strong stench permeated the entire room, even with a mask on, it was difficult to block it.The apprentices frowned and covered their noses.

"It's very smelly, isn't it?" Sonia said, "When we make specimens, if possible, we should dissect the stomachs, crops, cheek pouches and other food storage organs of the specimens, so that we can know their main organs. What is the food, it is of reference value to understand the habits and habitats of animals."

She carefully cut open the crop and poured out a pile of black food fragments. The food in the crop was still relatively intact, and it could be seen that there were insects and plant seeds.

"Everyone can take a look, there are probably some seeds and insects." Sonia used small tweezers to flick the food fragments away.

Then she cut open the stomach sac.The strong stench of corruption caused the students who were already close to retreat to retreat.Sonia pushed the contents away on the enamel plate as if she hadn't smelled it.

The food in the stomach has become a semi-paste, and the contents inside can hardly be seen clearly.But after pushing it away and looking carefully, you can still see some undigested food fragments.

"Let's see, how many kinds of insects and plants can you see?"

The "apprentices" surrounded the two enamel basins, trying to hold back the stench, and carefully identified them.

"There are beetles, but nothing of what kind."

"That's right." Sonia nodded, flicking out the remains of the beetle.

"snails!"

"This is too easy, the snail shell is complete." Sonia laughed.

"cricket."

"You can tell by its legs."

The apprentices chattered about and named many types of insects, but no one could name the plants -- no wonder, even if these seeds were not digested, they were half-rotted, with different colors and shapes. Big changes are not easy to see.Sonya herself didn't recognize much.

If you use the owner's microscope, you should be able to distinguish more details.However, the microscopes of the optical factory are still in short supply, and "non-productive departments" such as the Natural History Museum have to wait in long queues after filing a purchase requisition report.Lin Hanlong opened the back door for her in the name of "birthday gift" for the one configured in Sonia's laboratory.

But Sonia didn't intend to bring this pile of sour contents back to the research room—she had too many things to do at the moment, and she couldn't care less about studying the blue magpie.

"This seems to be the limb of an animal." Valentina said suddenly.She used tweezers to extract a small bone-like object from inside.

"It's indeed an animal's bone." Sonia looked at it carefully. "It should be part of a limb bone of some kind of amphibian or reptile. I can't tell which one it is. But judging from the food items of other corvids." , should be lizards or frogs,"

"Then it eats very mixed things."

"Yes, corvids have very mixed feeding habits. Although they mainly eat animal food such as insects, they also eat plant fruits, seeds and grains. Common types of animal food include click beetles, scarab beetles, locusts, grasshoppers, Flies, katydids, crickets, beetles, lepidopteran larvae and other insects also eat spiders, snails, worms, fireflies, frogs, lizards, chicks, bird eggs and other small invertebrates and vertebrates."

Sonia easily recited the information she read from "Ornithology", and of course she didn't follow the script completely - she has dissected a lot of corvids and confirmed this statement through experiments.The blue magpie should not be much different as a corvid bird.

Finally, by identifying food fragments and residues, they calculated that plant fruits accounted for 33.8%, amphibians and reptiles accounted for 32.4%, insects accounted for 22.5%, other birds accounted for 7%, and unrecognizable 4.3%.

After talking about the eating habits of the blue magpies, it was almost time for the sailfish to be humidified. Sonia asked them to bring the sailfish specimens again.The damp cloth has just been unwrapped, allowing the air to slightly dry the moisture from the surface.

Xiaowen brought the toolbox to Sonia.Sonia touched the fish skin in various parts and felt that it had softened.She said: "We restore specimens, first of all, to restore the specimens. The broken places need to be repaired, and the sunken places need to be refilled -- if the filling shows signs of mold and insects, the old filling should be removed and refilled. .”

With that said, she started to fix it.Repairing the specimen is a complicated job. First, she adjusts the bracket structure inside the fish body according to the damage of the specimen, and then sprinkles the defatted kapok with camphor powder to fill the damaged and sunken place, and then the cracked edge of the skin is covered with Pinning with small nails——This step is particularly difficult to do, because the leather will gradually lose water after softening, so many damaged places must be clamped temporarily with special wooden boards to set the shape.

Sonia had no choice but to use special paper to "patch" the places where the skin defects could no longer be stitched with leather.

"As long as possible, it is best not to use the patching mode." Sonia said, "Whether it is leather or paper, its strength is not the same as fish skin, and it shrinks differently when it is dry or wet, and it is easy to crack."

"If we have sailfish skin, wouldn't it be fine?" an apprentice said, "It's all swordfish skin, and the shrinkage rate is the same."

"You're right, but we didn't," Sonia agreed.

"Our master is a fishing company, you can talk to him. Keep the fish skin..."

"According to what you said, it would be easier to just catch a new sailfish."

"Besides, the fishery company doesn't peel the skin, it's the job of the fish processing factory."

……

Sonia signaled to everyone not to discuss any more. While waiting for the skins to dry, she was going to start making the Taiwan blue magpie.

She put on her gloves, and carefully took out a glass bottle with a black skull.

"This is antiseptic paste, a highly toxic preservative. It is also a preservative commonly used when we make specimens. Its active ingredient is called arsenic in Chinese. It is actually a compound containing arsenic. The toxicity is very violent! If you accidentally touch it Your lips, you'll see God in less than a minute."

As she spoke, she opened the lid, carefully took out a bamboo spatula, and dug some out of the bottle, and a weird smell wafted out of the air.

Sonia unfolded the bird feather skin, and carefully applied the antiseptic paste to the inside of the bird feather skin.Then hang it up to let it air out a bit.Then it started to go into production.

"The second important step in making the stripped specimen is to make the bracket. The material of the bracket is this galvanized iron wire, which is soft enough and has a certain strength." Sonia picked up a bunch of Australian galvanized iron wires, "This is Australian iron wire, galvanized, has a certain corrosion resistance, which is especially used for our specimens.”

She said: The choice of wire.The size of the wire should be selected according to the size of the bird, generally it is advisable to support the whole bird specimen.If the wire is too thin, it cannot support the body of the bird, and it is not easy to shape the specimen. If the wire is too thick, it will be laborious to build, thread and shape the bracket.

“……小型的鸟类用26号至24号铁丝，大型鸟类用8号至10号铁丝，常用20号至10号铁丝。蓝鹊作为比较大的小型鸟类，我们可以选用20号。”

Sonia said as she pulled out a coil of wire and a sharp-nosed pick from the wire.The tools of these Australians feel good from the bottom of their hearts.

"Let's build the specimen bracket first. Before building the bracket, we must first have a basic plan: what is the posture of the specimen. For birds, there are two most basic postures: standing posture and flying. If It can be subdivided, and more can be separated. For the specific posture, you can refer to the natural history painting; it can also be determined according to the condition of the stripped skin. Today we will make the simplest standing posture."

Sonia picked up the wire, measured the size and cut off three pieces.File both ends of each wire with a file.

"The end of the cut wire will be sharper, and it needs to be polished beforehand, so as not to pierce the leather when wearing the model—it may also pierce your hand." She said and picked up a wire:
"Three iron wires are generally used to build the bracket. The first wire is from the head to the left foot. At this time, the ventral side of the specimen is facing upwards." She picked up the bird feather skin and gestured. The feet are 3 to 4 centimeters." She began to thread the wire through the leather, "The movement should be light and not forceful. Otherwise, the skin will be easily punctured."

After the first wire is threaded, the second wire is made in the same way, from the left wing to the right foot; the third wire is from the right wing to the tail.

"This wire should grow 5 to 6 centimeters from the coccyx, and for species with particularly long tail feathers—such as the Taiwan blue magpie, the wire at the tail should be made into a 'ya' shape."

After wearing the three wires, Sonia carefully held the middle of the three lead wires with her hands, and gently straightened the wings and feet to make the two sides symmetrical.Then bend the wire from the middle again.Daddy hurriedly handed her a short wire to tie it tightly, and then separated it for tidying up.

Although it has not been filled yet, and the fur feathers supported by wires are "hanging" on the bracket in a grotesque manner, it can already be seen that this is a bird.

"The bracket is done, and the next job is to fill it." Sonia said, "After the bracket is put on, it must be filled quickly. You can't wait for the feathers to dry completely. Now the bird's feathers are still slightly damp. If When it's completely dry, the bird's feathers are very difficult to comb into shape."

Stuffing specimens, in the past Fangcaodi used straw to make animal specimens.The effect is not very good, it is easy to corrode, moth and mildew, the straw is also easy to damage the leather, and the fullness and stability of the filling are also poor.So now start to switch to skimmed kapok.

(End of this chapter)