WANDERINGS IN SOUTH AMERICA 325 



selves will be unequal when you come to put tliem 

 in tlieir proper attitude. Here then rests the shell 

 of the poor hawk, ready to receive, from your 

 skill and judgment, the size, the shape, the fea- 

 tures and expression it had, ere death, and your 

 dissecting hand, brought it to its present still 

 and formless state. The cold hand of death 

 stamps deep its mark upon the prostrate victim. 

 When the heart ceases to beat, and the blood no 

 longer courses through the veins, the features 

 collapse, and the whole frame seems to shrink 

 within itself. If then you have formed your idea 

 of the real appearance of the bird from a dead 

 sj^ecimen, you will be in error. With this in mind, 

 and at the same time forming your specimen a 

 trifle larger than life, to make up for what it will 

 lose in drying, you will reproduce a bird that will 

 please you. 



It is now time to introduce the cotton for an 

 artificial body, by means of a little stick like a 

 knitting-needle; and without any other aid or 

 substance than that of this little stick and cotton, 

 your own genius must produce those swellings 

 and cavities, that just proportion, that elegance 

 and harmony of the whole, so much admired in 

 animated nature, so little attended to in preserved 

 specimens. After you have introduced the cotton, 

 sew up the orifice you originally made in the 

 belly, beginning at the vent. And from time to 

 time, till you arrive at the last stitch, keep adding 

 a little cotton, in order that there may be no de- 

 ficiency there. Lastly, dip your stick into the 

 solution, and put it down the throat three or four 

 times, in order that every part may receive it. 



