56 



ORDER XIII. GR ALL ATORES. 



This order consists of birds which frequent the sea-shore, 

 margins of lakes and rivers, feeding on fish, worms, &c. In 

 stuffing, they must necessarily always be placed in standing or 

 walking postures. They walk with a slow and measured step. 

 Many of them enter the water without swimming, and hence 

 their designation, Waders. As we recommended in the Vulture 

 tribe, the tarsi must be opened, and the tendons taken away 

 to prevent putridity, to which they are very liable. 



Birds of this order must be placed on flat boards, or circles 

 of wood turned for the purpose. Their skins are of a very 

 greasy nature, and require to be particularly well primed with 

 the arsenical soap, and after they have absorbed this, with the 

 solution of corrosive sublimate. We must particularly notice 



THE FLAMINGO. PJuzrilCOpterUS Tuber. 



This bird is one of those, whose head cannot be passed with- 

 in the skin of the neck during the operation of skinning, so 

 that a different mode of treatment becomes necessary. When 

 obstacles of this nature come in our way, we must, in the first 

 place, bare the neck as high as possible, by introducing the 

 scalpel-handle betwixt the skull and the skin. The neck is 

 then cut off as high as we can reach, and the skin pulled 

 straight while it is yet soft. It now becomes necessary to make 

 an incision behind the head, by which to remove the remaining 

 vertebrae and the brain of the bird ; the skin must be laid back 

 to the right and left, and cut as low as the first vertebrae. The 

 occipital hole is then enlarged, that we may more easily extract 

 the brain ; and the eyes are taken out by the same opening. 

 The orifice is then sewed up with very fine stitches, taking 

 care to separate the feathers at every stitch. 



The wire of the neck must be placed before the stuffing is 

 commenced. The other parts are stuffed in the ordinary way. 

 The leg-wires are next put in. The bone of the tarsus is 

 pierced near the heels with a triangular bodkin (plate VI., fig. 

 8). The point of the leg- wire is now introduced into the per- 

 foration. When the point has reached the knee-joint, we must 



