i 3 4 A BIRD COLLECTOR'S MEDLEY. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

 NOTES ON BIRD PRESERVING. 



MANY are the treatises that have been written on bird-stuffing, many 

 the strange representations of Nature that obedience to their instructions 

 has produced, and many the internal shudders that have been experienced 

 by those whom the artist has invited to admire them. 



I do not intend, therefore, to describe the whole process in detail. Full 

 directions can be bought anywhere for a shilling, and any one of these hand- 

 books will answer its purpose perfectly well. Myself, as one who never had 

 a lesson on the subject, and owes most of his skill, such as it is, to the bitter 

 teaching of experience, I only propose to jot down a few hints and suggestions 

 which may perhaps save some youthful collector from the feeling of 

 unspeakable vexation with which I have often gazed upon the remnants of 

 those rarer birds which I was unfortunate enough to capture, and subsequently 

 mangle, in the earlier days of my collection. 



To one who regards a stuffed bird from an aesthetic rather than a 

 scientific point of view, few sights are more intensely maddening than that 

 of a rare bird badly stuffed. The plumage, indeed, may be perfect, not a 

 feather missing if you will, but a stiff attitude, an unstuffed throat, a distorted 

 eye, a bad cut about the shoulders, in larger birds even an unstuffed cheek 

 these are blemishes which, obtruding themselves as they do on the fastidious 

 eye of the connoisseur, have ere now consigned a " perfect specimen " to 

 the dustbin, and, in my opinion, rightly too. One is almost inclined at times, 

 after beholding some well-devilled effigy, to join the ranks of those who 

 insist on keeping their birds as skins rather than subject them to the un- 

 certain vicissitudes of the process so aptly designated " setting up." 



Perhaps the most annoying fact connected with bird-stuffing is that the 

 mistakes which spoil stuffed birds are such small ones, so easily avoided if 

 one only gives time and care to the work. I have sat by and watched a good 

 man ruin a bird simply because he would stroke the neck so lovingly 

 while he had it turned inside out. My own belief is that any person possessed 

 of moderately artistic tastes and perseverance can, if he will, become a 



