48 



FIELD ORNITHOLOGY. 



should be done by the mouth and vent, be thorough, and be repeated several times as the 

 fluid dries in. It is an improvement on this to disembowel and till the belly with saturated 

 tow or cotton. Due care should be taken not to soil the feathers in any case, nor should the 

 carbolic solution come in contact with the hands, for it is a powerful irritant poison. I mention 

 the process chiefly to condemn it as an atrocious one ; I cannot imagine what circumstances 

 would recommend it, while only an extreme emergency could justify it. It is further objection- 

 able because it appears to lend a dingy hue to some plumages, and to dull most of them 

 perceptibly. Birds prepared — rather unprepared — in this way, may be relaxed by the 

 method just described, and then skinned; but the operation is rather difficult. 



Wet Preparations. — ^By this terra is technically understood an object immersed in some 

 preservative fluid. It is highly desirable to obtain more information of birds than their stufi"ed 

 skins can ever furnish, and their structure cannot be always examined by dissection on the 

 spot. In fact, a certain small proportion of the birds of any protracted or otherwise " heavy " 

 collecting may be preferably and very profitably preserved in this way. Specimens in too 

 poor plumage to be worth skinning may be thus utilized ; so may the bodies of skinned birds, 

 which, although necessarily defective, retain all the viscera, and also aflord osteological mate- 

 rial. Alcohol is the liquid usually employed, and, of all the various articles recommended, 

 seems to answer best on the whole. I have used a very weak solution of chloride of zinc with 

 excellent results ; it should not be strong enough to show the slightest turbidity. As glass 

 b(jttles are liable to break when travelling, do not fit corners, and offer practical annoyance 

 about corkage, rectangular metal cans, preferably of copper, wnth screw-lid opening, are 

 advisable. They are to be set in small, strong, wooden boxes, made to leave a little room for 

 the lid wTench, muslin bags for doing up separate parcels, parchment for labels, etc. Unoc- 

 cupied space in the cans should be filled with tow or a similar substance, to prevent the 

 specimens from swashing about. Labelling sliould be on parchment ; the writing should be 

 perfectly dry before immersion ; india-ink is the best. Skinned bodies should be numbered to 

 correspond with the dried skin from w^hich taken; otherwise they may not be identifiable. 

 Large birds thro\^ii in imskinned should have the belly opened, to let in the alcohol freely. 

 Birds may be skiuued, after being in alcohol, by simply drying them : they often make fair 

 specimens. They are best withdrawn by the bill, that the "swash" of the alcohol at the 

 moment of emersion may set the plumage all one way, and huug up to dry untouched. 

 Watery moisture that may remain after evaporation of the alcohol may be dried with plaster. 



Figs 1, 2. — Views of .iternum and pectoral arch of the ptarmigan, Lagopus albus. reduced; after A. New- 

 ton. 1, lateral view, with the bones upside down; 2, viewed from below, a, sternum or breast-bone, showing two 

 long slender lateral processes; fc. ends of sternal ribs; e, ends of humerus, or upper arm-bone, near the shoulder- 

 joint ; d, scapula, or shoulder-blade ; f , coracoid ; /, merry-thought, or furculum (clavicles). 



Osteological and other Preparations (figs. 1-3 >. — While complete skeletonizing of 

 a bird is a special art of some difficulty, and one that does not fall within the scope of this 

 treatise, I may mention two bony preparations very readily made, and susceptible of rendering 



