HOW TO SKIN BIRDS. 105 



prevent liquids or juices escaping and soiling the feathers. 

 Now, lay the specimen on its back and separate the feathers. 

 They will open along the abdomen where a bare strip of 

 skin can be seen from the breast to the tail. Hold the 

 feathers thus separated with the thumb and finger of the 

 left hand, and make an incision along the middle line of the 

 abdomen, almost from the top of the breast bone full to the 

 vent. Take hold of the cut edge of the skin and press the 

 flesh of the abdomen down from it with the side of the knife. 

 Never pull on the skin, but press the flesh away from it. 

 Carefully raise each side of the skin as far as the legs. Bend 

 the knee joints up through the opening and cut them off. 

 Skin the legs, scraping the flesh from the bones, but leaving the 

 bone of each leg in place. Loosen the skin as far down 

 toward the back as possible. Now stand the specimen up on 

 its breast and bend the tail down toward the back. Cut it off 

 at the joint very slowly, cutting only a little at a time to 

 make sure that it is flesh and not skin you are severing. You 

 are also to be careful not to cut through <he quills of the 

 tail feathers; if cut they will often drop out. 



The bird may now be hung head downward, by a hook 

 inserted in the exposed stump of the rump; and with a little 

 care, the skin may be gradually stripped off as far as the wings ; 

 the wings are to be severed from the body, inside the skin, 

 at the shoulder joint. At this stage, the wings themselves 

 are to be separately skinned; detaching the secondaries 

 from the ulna; scraping the bones thoroughly and removing 

 the humerus or single bone of the wing entirely. This 

 method of skinning the wing is only applied to small birds. 

 Always leave all but the head of the humerus in good-sized 

 birds. Never detach the secondaries from the ulna in birds 

 the size of Cooper's Hawk and upwards, for in order to do 

 good work on a large bird if it should ever be mounted, the 

 secondaries must be attached to the bone. Especially is this 



