32 ON STUFFING BIRDS. 
| 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 
atable, 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 STUFFING BIRDS, 
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 
1éft 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 
