46 FIELD ORNITHOLOGY parti 



between your left thumb and fingers, the bill pointing towards yon, 

 the bird's palate facing you ; you observe a space bounded behind 

 by the base of the skull where the neck joins, in front by the floor 

 of the mouth, on either side by the prongs of the under jaw, — these 

 last especially prominent. Take the scissors ; stick one blade just 

 inside one branch of the lower jaw, thence into the eye-socket 

 Avhich lies below (the head being upside down), thence into the 

 brain-box; make a cut parallel with the jaw, just inside of it, 

 bringing the upper scissor-blade perpendicularly downward, crash- 

 ing through the skull just inside of the angle of the jaw. Duplicate 

 this cut on the other side. Connect the anterior ends of these cuts 

 by a transverse one across the floor and roof of the mouth. Connect 

 the posterior ends of the side cuts by one across the back of the skull 

 near its base, — ^just where the nape-muscle ceases to override the 

 cranium. You have enclosed and cut out a squarish-shaped mass of 

 bone and muscle, and, on gently pulling the neck (to which of course 

 it remains attached) the whole affair comes out, bringing the brain 

 with it, but leaving the entire roof of the skull supported on a scaftbld- 

 ing of jaw-bone. It only remains to skin the wings. Seize the arm- 

 stump with fingers or forceps ; the upper arm is readily drawn from 

 its sheath as far as the elbow ; but the wing must be skinned to 

 the wrist (carpus — " bend of the wing ") ; yet it will not come out 

 easily, because the secondary quills grow to one of the forearm 

 bones (the ulna), pinning down the skin the whole way along a 

 series of points. To break up these connections, hold the upper 

 arm firmly with the left thumb and forefinger, the convexity of the 

 elbow looking towards you; press the right thumb-nail closely 

 against the back edge of the ulna, and strip downward, scraping 

 the bone with the nail the whole way. If you only hit the line of 

 adhesions, there is no trouble at all about this. Now you want to 

 leave in one of the two forearm bones, to preserve sufficiently the 

 shape of the limb, but to remove the other, with the upper-arm 

 bone and all the flesh. It is done in a moment : stick the point of 

 the scissors between the heads of the two forearm bones, and cut 

 the hinder one (ulna) away from the elbow ; then the other fore- 

 arm bone (radius), bearing on its near end the elbow and the whole 

 upper-arm, is to be stripped away from the ulna, taking with it the 

 flesh of the forearm, and to be cut off" at its far end close to the 

 wrist-joint, one stroke severing the bone and all the tendons that 

 pass over the wrist to the hand ; then the ulna, bare of flesh, is 

 alone left in, attached at the wrist. Draw gently on the wing from 

 the outside till it slips into the natural position whence you everted 

 it. Do the same for the other wing. This finishes the skinning 

 process. The skin is now to be turned right side out. Begin any 

 way you please, till you see the point of the bill reappearing among 



