COLLECTION OF BIRDS AND EGGS. 75 



SKINNING. 



We do not propose here to attempt a detailed ac- 

 count of the taxidermist's art, but the general mode of 

 procedure should be as follows: 



See that throat, nostrils, and wounds are well plug- 

 ged with cotton, and fasten some also around the bill. 

 Should any blood get on the feathers, remove it at once, 

 with a damp sponge, and dry with plaster-of -Paris. Lay 

 the bird on its back, separate the breast-feathers right 

 and left, cut from the breast-bone to the vent (not cuttirg 

 the flesh), and raise the skin carefully on each side as far 

 as the legs- Cut off the legs at the knee-joints, inside the 

 skin, and afterward skin down to the tarsus, scraping 

 the flesh from the shin-bone, but leaving that bone in 

 place. Next skin around the coccyx, or tail-bones and cut 

 off the coccyx inside the skin, leaving enough flesh to 

 hold the feathers. 



Large birds can often be more easily handled if 

 suspended, head downward before the operator, by a 

 strong' hook firmly inserted in the exposed stump of the 

 rump; but with a little experience this becomes unneces- 

 sary. Now carefully strip off the skin, turning it back 

 like a glove, as far as the wings; cut off the wings, inside 

 the skin, at shoulder-joint. Skin the wing-bones and 

 scrape the flesh from them, as from the legs. Skin over 

 the head to the bill, taking especial care not to stretch 

 the skin. The skin above the ears and eyes will have to be 

 detached by cutting. The eyes must now be picked out, 

 and the entire base of the skull removed, together with 

 the brain, and the flesh between the jaws. If the head is 

 too large to be skinned in this way, some persons make 

 an incision under the throat, but a writer in Random Notes 

 gives the better method of opening it on the back of the 

 head. 



