In making the hind leg, the iron should be no longer at the upper end than the end of the femur, and once this is determined the upper end of the femur must be cut off with a saw, to give room for the squares and two nuts. The end of the iron for the front leg may project three inches or so above the head of the humerus, and be bent slightly backward; to point upward in the same direction as the scapula.
Remember that at first the squares of the two pairs are set on exactly opposite each other, by means of the single bolt for each pair. Insert the upper end of each leg iron, screw the upper nut down firmly, then lift the half-made animal and stand it on its legs. Being free to move, the legs are very shaky, and you proceed at once to put them in position. You now adjust the legs according to your original design, bore holes in the rough pedestal for the lower ends of the rods to pass through, and shift and change the different members, now here, now there, until you are satisfied that the leg's are in precisely the right attitudes. If the leg that is stepping out in front is too short, run up the two nuts at the square, and thus make the leg an inch or two longer. Those that are too long are easily shortened by shifting their nuts lower down. You have such absolute control over the legs that you can shift and change them just as much as you please, and that very easily. If the whole animal is coupled too short or too long, it is but five minutes' work to take out a bolt, bore another hole, and shift the forelegs farther forward or back. When everything is perfectly to your liking, tighten up every nut to its very tightest, and insert screws through the screw-holes that have been provided in the long arm of each square. Each leg is now a fixture.
The great beauty of this method, which appears to its greatest perfection in the construction of a manikin, lies in the fact that you have, from first to last, the most perfect control over the different parts of the entire animal. When you discover as you proceed that something is wrong, it is an easy matter to change it, provided the skin has not been put on the manikin.
In putting together an animal with the legs in the skin, you are necessarily troubled somewhat by the skin of the body, which hinders the turning of your wrench, etc.; but all such difficulties exist only to be overcome.