320 WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA 



finger and thumb, just behind the wings, and it 

 will soon expire. Carry it by the legs, and then, 

 the body being reversed, the blood cannot escape 

 down the plumage through the shot-holes. As 

 blood will often have issued out before you have 

 laid hold of the bird, find out the shot-holes, by 

 dividing the feathers with your fingers, and blow- 

 ing on them, and then, with your penknife, or the 

 leaf of a tree, carefully remove the clotted blood, 

 and put a little cotton on the hole. If, after all, 

 the plumage has not escaped the marks of blood ; 

 or if it has imbibed slime from the ground, wash 

 the part in water, without soap, and keep gently 

 agitating the feathers, with your fingers, till they 

 are quite dry. Were you to wash them, and leave 

 them to dry by themselves, they would have a 

 very mean and shrivelled appearance. 



In the act of skinning a bird, you must either 

 have it upon a table, or upon your knee. Prob- 

 ably, you will prefer your knee; because when 

 you cross one knee over the other, and have the 

 bird upon the uppermost, you can raise it to your 

 eye, or lower it, at pleasure, by means of the foot 

 on the ground, and then your knee will always 

 move in unison with your body, by which much 

 stooping will be avoided and lassitude prevented. 



With these precautionary hints in mind, we will 

 now proceed to dissect a bird. Suppose we take a 

 hawk. The little birds will thank us, with a song 

 for his death, for he has oppressed them sorely; 

 and in size he is just the thing. His skin is also 

 pretty tough, and the feathers adhere to it. 



We will put close by us a little bottle of the solu- 

 tion of corrosive sublimate in alcohol; also a 



