COLLECTING SKINS OF SMALL BIRDS. 



47 



in skinning, skin-making-, and mounting you master the robin, 

 for example, which is the highest type of a bird, you will be 

 well prepared for the great majority of the other members of 

 the feathered tribe. 



Shoot your specimen with as fine shot as possible, and not 

 too much even of that, in order to avoid shooting its mandibles, 

 feet, legs, and feathers to pieces. As soon as it is dead, plug the 

 throat, nostrils, and 

 all iramnls il/at bleed, 

 with bits of cotton, 

 to keep the blood 

 and other liquids 

 from oozing out 

 upon the feathers, 

 and putting you to 

 more serious trou- 

 ble. Carry the spec- 

 imen home in any 

 careful way you 

 choose, so as to 

 avoid rumpling or 

 soiling the plum- 

 age. By all means 

 let your first prac- 

 tice be upon clean 

 1 )irds. 



A bird should lie 

 an hour or two after 

 being shot, in order 

 that the blood may coagulate. Warm specimens bleed very 

 badly in skinning. 



"We are now in our workroom, with the gun standing quietly 

 in its corner, and a robin lying on the table before us. Look at 

 it. Study its form and structiire, and remember what you see. 

 Notice how smoothly the feathers lie how nicely they fall over 

 the angle of the wing at the shoulder how completely the 

 thigh is buried in the feathers of the breast and side, and also 

 where the legs emerge from the body feathers. Notice how 



* From Steele's Popular Zoology, by permission of the American Book Company. 



FIG. 10. Names of the External Parts of a Bird.* 1, Crown ; 

 2, forehead ; 3 nostrils (or cere) ; 4, upper mandible ; 5, lower 

 mandible; 6, throat; 7, neck; 8, spurious quills; 9, occiput; 

 10, ear ; 11, nape ; 12, breast ; 13, middle coverts ; 14, large cov- 

 erts ; 15, belly ; 1C, tibia ; 17 tarsus ; 18, inner toe ; 19, middle 

 toe ; 20, outer toe ; 21, thumb ; 22, under-tail coverts ; 23 tail ; 24, 

 primaries ; 25, secondaries ; 26, tertiaries. 



