MAKING BIRDSKINS 17 



not too large, fold in the edges of the cornucopia and place the specimen 

 in your bag or basket. In the case of very large specimens Hawks, 

 Owls, etc. it is advisable to skin out the body in the field, when they 

 can be packed in much smaller space. 



Making Birdskins.- With proper instruction it is not difficult to 

 learn to skin birds. I have known beginners, who had closely watched 

 experts at work, make fair skins at their first attempt better skins, 

 indeed, than the person who learns only from written directions may 

 ever make. I am speaking from experience. Only too clearly do I 

 remember my own first attempts at skinning birds and their hopelessly 

 wretched results. In despair I at last sought the assistance of a distant 

 ornithological friend. In one lesson he made the process so clear to me 

 that I was at once enabled to make skins twice as quickly and twice as 

 well. However, we unfortunately are not all blessed with ornithological 

 friends to whom we can turn for advice, and I therefore append the 

 following directions for making birdskins: 



Let us begin with a bird, say, the size of a Robin: 1. Plug the bird's 

 throat and nostrils tightly with fresh cotton. If the eyeball is ruptured, 

 pull it out with the forceps and fill the cavity with meal. 2. Lay the 

 bird before you on its back, its bill pointing to the left; place your open 

 left hand lengthwise on it, so that the base of your first and second fingers 

 rests on the middle of the breastbone; use these fingers and the handle 

 of the scalpel to separate the feathers from near the end of the breast- 

 bone to the vent, and when the parting is made use the same fingers 

 to hold the feathers aside. 3. With the scalpel make an incision in 

 the skin from just in front of the end of the breastbone, or at the base 

 of the V formed by the spread fingers, to the vent, being careful not to 

 cut through into the abdomen. 4. Sprinkle a pinch of meal along the 

 cut. 5. Lift the skin at the front end of the cut and insert the end of 

 the scalpel handle between it and the breastbone. If you try to do this 

 lower down on the cut, over the belly, you will find it difficult to separate 

 the skin on which the feathers grow from the immediately underlying 

 skin which covers the abdomen. Separate the skin from the body the 

 whole length of the cut and as far down toward the backbone as possible, 

 thus exposing the bare knee. 6. Take hold of the foot and push the 

 knee farther up into view, then take the blunt-ended scissors and, on 

 the inside of the skin, clip the leg entirely in two. 7. Repeat opera- 

 tions 5 and 6 on the other side of the body. 8. Press away the skin as 

 much as possible on either side of the rump, and place the thumb 

 at the left side (left, seen from above) of the base of the tail or 'pope's 

 nose,' with the first finger on the other side (both inside the skin) and 

 the second finger behind (above) on the rump; now with the blunt 

 scissors cut through the flesh between the thumb and first finger toward 

 the second finger, which serves the purpose of a guard to prevent you 

 from cutting through the skin. 9. Stand the bird on its breastbone, 

 the belly toward you, and with both thumbs press the tail and skin 

 of the rump over and down off the stump from which you have just 



