64 TAXIDERMY AND ZOOLOGICAL COLLECTING. 



the Irishman played the fiddle at Donnybrook fair, neither by 

 note nor by ear, but, " be jabers, by main strength," and posed 

 and shaped him by Audubon's superb plate. He was pro- 

 nounced an unqualified success. I shaped his future, and he 

 shaped mine at the same time. When I saw him again, seven 

 years later, he was every bit as good as new, and I was aston- 

 ished to find how really good he was. He was the first bird 

 I ever skinned or mounted, and a lucky bird he was for me. 

 Had he been a dirty, greasy, old swan, think what a scrape I 

 should have been in ! 



LAMELLIKOSTEES : The Ducks, Geese, Swans (and Flamingoes). 

 There are but two points to be spoken of under this head. The 

 first is that all the birds of this order must have their heads 

 skinned through a slit at the back of the head. The other is in 

 regard to cleaning. 



All ducks, geese, and swans are very fat, even when they are 

 poorest. Were they otherwise, they could not livo on the water 

 as they do. Nearly the whole body is enveloped in a firm, tena- 

 cious layer of fat, into which the ends of the body feathers run 

 and take root, and bind the skin itself down so firmly that it 

 really becomes a part of the fatty layer. To remove the skin, 

 you must have a keen knife, and by hard labor slice through the 

 fat as you go. As a general thing, it is slow and tedious work. 

 When you begin, and all the way as you proceed, use plenty of 

 plaster Paris or corn-meal to absorb the free oil, and keep it 

 off the feathers. 



After the skin is off tho body, and before you turn it right 

 side out, scrape the inside to get the oil off, absorb it with your 

 absorbent material, and scrape it again and again until the 

 grease is practically all off, and you have only the skin remain- 

 ing. This takes work. There is no royal road to making good 

 duck skins. If you think you can get along all right by over- 

 whelming the grease on the skin with arsenic and alum, and 

 venture to leave it half cleaned, you will pay the penalty later, 

 and it will serve you right. You cannot cure grease with pre- 

 servatives. You may fill a fat duck skin half full of arsenic, and 

 yet the oil will ooze out through the skin on the other side, 

 turning the feathers a dirty yellow color. The dermostes can 

 eat every feather, and also the skin itself, from the outside, with- 



