Lin Gao Qiming

Chapter 2435 Sonia ([-])

Sonia put the degreased blue magpie skull back into the skin bag and adjusted it carefully.Then she took out another box.

"It's camphor powder—a natural spice that has a strong anti-mite effect. The one I use happens to be from Taiwan," she explained. "We have embalmed the bird skin with arsenic paste, but The defatted kapok also needs to be treated to prevent moths.”

As she spoke, she spread the degreased kapok flat on the operating table, sprinkled it with a layer of camphor powder, then clamped one side with tweezers and rolled it tightly, and began to fill the bird feather skin.

"When filling, fill in the order of head, neck, wings, chest, legs, abdomen, and tail. Fill in little by little, and fill every part fully—but not too much..."

She said: When filling, you must first grasp the form of the bird in its natural state, and fill it according to the natural form of the bird.Pay special attention to the shape of the reference natural painting.

“It’s best not to do taxidermy without detailed shape references, or your stuffed animal will be badly out of shape and become a different animal entirely.”

Then she instructed while stuffing: the place with more muscle tissue in the specimen can be filled more, the chest and abdomen should be filled, and the neck should be filled less, but no gaps can be left.If the filling is not solid, after the specimen is completely dry, it will collapse and affect the appearance.

She stuffed herself while talking, her movements were skillful and sophisticated, and the apprentices envied her.But for Sonia, making specimens is her basic skill, not to mention the conditions here in Lingao are much better.

After filling, the shape of the blue magpie has basically recovered, and she uses pins to fasten the openings of the bird's skin together one by one.

"At this time, don't rush to sew up the opening, because the state of the feathers has not recovered yet. After the feathers are combed, we will observe the effect of the filling. If there are unsatisfactory places, we can correct them. After we are completely satisfied, we will sew them up with needle and thread."

According to the "Australian taxidermy method" learned by Sonia, the hair of the specimen should be dried with a hair dryer after filling to restore its fluffy texture.

Although there is no technical threshold for hair dryers, it is still a bit difficult to put them in the industrial system of the Senate.So this thing has never been mass-produced.Specimen making saves this process.In its place is a fully automatic oven.The hair of the specimen is fully dried by low-temperature radiation. In order to prevent the feathers from being burned for a long time, the specimen is fixed on a turntable, which is continuously rotated by a human handle at a low speed.

This almost "kebab" drying requires a lot of patience, otherwise the feathers are easily burnt.Sonia handed over the specimen to Dawen and Xiaowen to bake, and seized the time to start the final steps of repairing the sailfish specimen.

The sailfish specimen was basically dry at this time. She checked all parts of the specimen to see if there was any damage that had not been repaired, and then began to scrape the latex on the nailed part of the skin to cover the nail head.

"When brushing latex, you must pay attention to a small amount, apply it repeatedly, and then scrape. Don't apply too much at one time, and scrape repeatedly to avoid the surface depression caused by the latex setting at one time. The function is to scrape the putty on the carpenter: fill and level gap, so that it is consistent with the surrounding skin in height."

"After the latex is scraped, we just need to wait for the latex to dry and shape." Sonia put down the tools in her hand, "The last job is to color the repaired place. This is not my job--tomorrow Asawi will do it."

After the sailfish specimens were removed, the blue magpie specimens with their feathers dried were brought back.The blue magpie specimen has started the last step: shaping and combing.

The main postures of bird specimens are only flying and standing.However, when setting the shape, based on the conditions and needs of the collected specimens, scene-based subdivision can be added on the premise of these two basic postures.For example, wait and see, forage, find a mate, etc. to shape the posture.

Sonia decided not to make too complicated poses, but to use the simplest standing poses.She fixed the blue magpie specimen on a section of embalmed tree branch according to the pre-selected shape.Plus the support of the wooden frame.Then fine-tune the posture.Finally secure it all with wire.

Finally, she selected a pair of glass prosthetic eyes of suitable size and color from a treasure chest-like multi-layered chest of drawers, and carefully inserted them into the empty eye sockets of the blue magpie specimen.Because the skull is filled inside, the prosthetic eye works well after being filled into the eye socket of the skull.A lifelike blue magpie specimen was born.Sonia carefully combed the feathers of the specimen, and collected the fallen feathers from time to time, and put them into special kraft paper bags.

"Although the specimens have been finished now, we still need to observe them every day. We can correct, paint, and stick feathers in time for the deformed, twisted, discolored, and feathered areas. After a week, the specimens will be completely dry, and then the scientific names and characteristics will be written. Paste the label with the habit. In this way, the specimen is completed." Sonia looked at it with satisfaction, "Do you know how to do the specimen?"

"It's too complicated!"

"You have to have a pair of skillful hands."

"You have to be very patient!"

"I'm sure I'd forget a lot of steps..."

"Mr. Suo, how can you multi-task?"

……

The apprentices started chattering again. Sonia didn't participate in the discussion among the apprentices. After a few perfunctory words, she hurried back to her research room.

The hands on the watch were already approaching six o'clock.Just as Sonia was about to pack up and get off work, Dawen sent her a new memo.

"Sending the memo so late!" she muttered, picking up the envelope.

Complaints are complaints, but as soon as the official documents are delivered, they must be opened and read immediately. This is what Lin Hanlong repeatedly emphasized to her.

The sealing wax on the envelope of the memorandum is imposingly bearing the badge of the elder—although it is impossible for Sonia to memorize the style of each elder's coat of arms, the common pattern of the coat of arms of the elders is still known.

Undoubtedly, this was a private memo written to her by a certain senator.

Who could this be?
Sonia became curious: she had a great reputation in the Senate, and almost every senator knew her and even recognized her.But she didn't have much contact with the veterans, mainly a few veterans from the remote exploration department of the Ministry of Science and Technology and a few industrialists engaged in the optical industry.

But the sender's name: Du Yibin, let alone knew her, she had never even heard of it.

A strange elder, why did you send her a memo?Judging from the number of the official document, it was not only sent to her, but also sent to several other elders related to the Natural History Museum.

With curiosity, Sonia opened the sealing wax and took out the letter inside.

The letter began with a self-introduction. To be honest, Sonia didn't quite understand the meaning, in order to prevent her own understanding from being biased.She called Ju Wenyi and asked her to read it to herself.

Ju Wenyi was stunned for a moment when he picked up the memo, and said hesitantly, "Teacher Suo, this is a personal memo."

"so what?"

"Private memos can only be viewed by the recipient, I don't think it's appropriate..."

"What does it matter? Anyway, it's business. Besides, I can't read Chinese." Sonia didn't care, "You read it, read it!"

Ju Wenyi had no choice but to start reading the letter.

The letter began with a short passage expressing admiration for Sonia, but the grammar was messed up, confused, and some of the words were quite inappropriate.Ju Wenyi was sweating while reading, for fear that this was a letter expressing his love from some ignorant elder.If I want to see it, I will be very unlucky!But then I thought about the fact that the memorandum should be kept as an official document in the office. It is said to be "private" but it is actually just "private opinion", not really a personal letter.I felt a little more at ease.

"What is this written about?" Sonia frowned. "He admired me very much? He also said that I was beautiful and knowledgeable? I was as beautiful as a fish that sank to the bottom, and that I killed a wild goose? I did collect it. Stuffed geese, but not when it's flying."

"Yes, that's what it means." Ju Wenyi said cautiously, "The fish and wild geese are just descriptions..."

"Oh, I see, it's a metaphor." Sonia nodded, "And then?"

When Ju Wenyi saw the second paragraph, he muttered: Next, the old man Du Yuan introduced himself in a long-winded manner, and he talked about his hobby of natural history at a large length. He has a lot of "experience in raising and breeding animals" Habits have a deep understanding and a strong interest."

Since you are so interested, why not go to the farm to feed the pigs?Ju Wenyi cursed in his heart.I wonder if this old man Du Yuan wants to express that he and Mr. Suo have common interests and hobbies?This is very bad...

However, the foreign woman didn't realize it. After hearing these words, a smile appeared on her face, and she praised: "It turns out that he is also a gentleman who likes natural history! This is really great! It seems that he is more interested in zoology." Understandable. And keep animals—that's not easy!"

The next paragraph made Ju Wenyi heave a sigh of relief. It turned out that the reason why the veteran Du Yibin wrote the memo was to propose to set up a "small zoo" in the Natural History Museum to "breed representative rare animals".Then he listed a lengthy list, all of which were animals that Ju Wenyi had never heard of, some of which had strange names, such as "dodo", "elephant bird", "giant tortoise" and so on.For some reason later, I wrote a long article about the habitat and current situation of these things.Chief Du also specifically said that "many animals are already in danger."Looks very anxious.

Although Ju Wenyi felt that Chief Du's literary talent was not very good when he read it, but it was obvious that Teacher Suo didn't care, especially when she heard the description of various animals in the third paragraph, her face showed " A mixed expression of "joy" and "curiosity".It seemed that this passage was to her liking.

(End of this chapter)