468 APPENDIX III 



through bases of tail-feathers ; work skin forward, turning 

 it inside out, loosening it carefully all around, without 

 stretching, to wings; cut off wings at elbow-joint, skin 

 down to next joint and remove flesh from wing-bones; 

 push skin forward to base of skull, and if skull is not too 

 large (it is in ducks, woodpeckers, and some other birds), 

 on over it to ears and eyes ; be very careful in loosening 

 the membrane of ears and in cutting nictitating membrane 

 of eyes ; do not cut into eyeball ; remove eyeballs without 

 breaking; cut off base of skull, and scoop out brain; 

 remove flesh from skull, and " poison " the skin by dust- 

 ing it thoroughly with the powdered arsenic and alum 

 mixture. Turn skin right side out, and clean off fresh 

 blood-stains by soaking them up with corn-meal; wash 

 off dried blood with water, and dry with corn-meal. 

 Corn-meal may be used during skinning to soak up blood 

 and grease. 



There remains to stuff the skin. Fill orbits of eyes with 

 cotton (this can be advantageously done before skin is 

 reversed) ; thrust into neck a moderately compact, elastic, 

 smooth roll of cotton about thickness of the natural neck; 

 make a loose oval ball of size and general shape of bird's 

 body and put into body-cavity with anterior end under 

 the posterior end of neck-roll ; pull two edges of abdominal 

 incision together over the cotton, fasten, if necessary, 

 with a single stitch of thread, smooth feathers, fold wings 

 in natural position, wrap skin, not tightly, in thin sheet 

 of cotton (opportunity for delicate handling here) and put 

 away in a drawer or box to dry. Before putting away tie 

 label to leg, giving date and locality of capture, sex and 

 measurements of bird, and name of collector. Before 

 bird is put into permanent collection it should be labelled 

 with its common and scientific name. 



The mounting of birds in lifelike shape and attitude is 

 hard to do successfully; and a collection of mounted birds 



