32 ON STUFFING BILIDS. 



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

 the body being reversed, the blood cannot escape down the 

 plumage and through the shot-holes. As blood will have often 

 issued out, before you have laid hold of the bird, find out the 

 shot-holes, by dividing the feathers with your fingers, and 

 blowing on them ; and then, with your pen-knife, 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, probably 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." 



ON T STUFFING BIRPS. 



The first thing to be done in stuffing is to replace the skull, 

 after it has been well anointed with the arsenical soap, and 

 washed with the solution of corrosive sublimate inside. The 

 thread, with which the beak is tied, is taken hold of by the 

 left hand, and the head is repassed into the neck with the 

 forefinger of the right hand, while the thread is pulled on the 

 opposite side ; and we are careful that the feathers, at the 

 margin of the opening, do not enter with the edges of the 

 skin. The bird is now laid on the table, with the head turned 

 towards the left hand ; and the legs and wings adjusted to their 

 proper situation. A flat piece of lead, about a pound in weight, 

 is laid on the tail, while the feathers of the margins of the 

 opening are raised by the forefinger and thumb of the left 

 hand, to prevent their being soiled. The inside of the neck is 

 now coated with the arsenical soap ; flax is stuffed into it, 

 but not too tightly. The back and rump are anointed, and 

 the body should then be stuffed with tow, to about a third 



