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JOURNAL OF MAINE ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



make a nest and succeeded very well 

 for a clumsy bird. 



One day some small boys offered 

 Bill an apple. He seized it with evid- 

 ent delight, and played with it a long 

 time by tossing it up in his beak and 

 running after it, much to the amuse- 

 ment of the small boys. 



In the morning when I went out to 

 feed my pet, he would stretch out his 

 wings, arch his long neck and turn the 

 pouch inside out over his neck. 



At last the time came for Bill to 

 die. It makes me sad to write about 

 it, for it was with deepest regret that 

 I took him to my work room. When 

 I put him into the box to chloroform 

 him, he looked at me so innocent and 

 trusting with his soft brown eyes 

 little suspecting that he whom he had 

 learned to love was about to take him 

 from this bright, beautiful world. I 

 felt very badly indeed, and for once 

 I wished I had never been a 

 taxidermist. Had there been any way 

 out of it I would have been ex- 

 cused gladly, for I had learned to love 

 him, ugly as he was. I laid a napkin 

 over his beak where his nostrils should 



have been and turned on chloroform, 

 but as it did not seem to have the de- 

 sired effect, upon investigation I 

 found that "Bill" had no nostrils, but 

 breather through a windpipe that ter- 

 minated in the pouch. 



At last he "gave up The ghost," and 

 in sl-:inning him I found a spongy tis- 

 sue between the body proper and the 

 skin wliich ne filled with air at pleas- 

 ure and thus made himself buoyant as 

 cork. 



He was the most difficult specimen 

 in the bird line I have ever mounted 

 for when his skin was removed it 

 was very large and stretched to such 

 an extent that if the artificial body 

 had been made to fit the skin, 

 the mounted specimen would have 

 been twice the size of the living 

 bird. But as experience has taught 

 me how to ti'eat such skins, after 

 many hours of patient labor I had 

 "Bill' standing on my work bench, and 

 nis many friends were kind enough to 

 say that he looked as well as ever. 



He now adorns the State museum at 

 Augusta, where he can be seen at any 

 time. 



