THE SETTING-UP OF BIRDS WITH SOFT BODIES 183 



allow for shrinkage is false in practice, for that is the very- 

 thing which is always done at first by the learner, with the 

 result that the bare tracts — for, be it well remembered, the 

 whole of a bird's skin is not covered with feathers — are unduly 

 puffed out, and no subsequent treatment can restore them to 

 the hollows in which they lay, and the feathers about the neck, 

 wings, and breast start, and cannot be brought together in a 

 natural manner. Let the learner take such a bird as a gull or 

 a grebe (worst of all) and make the body too large, and then 

 try to get the breast feathers into position without causing an 

 unsightly line, and the feathers to part in opposite directions, 

 and he will speedily find that there is no help for his troubles 

 but taking some of the packing out, or, in the case of a hard 

 body, replacing it by a smaller one. 



Waterton's method, though very pretty in theory — and, in 

 his hands, in practice, — is not one which commends itself as 

 having any scientific value. 



DIVISION III 

 THE SETTING-UP OF BIRDS WITH SOFT BODIES AND WIRES 



This, the most ancient system of setting up birds, pre- 

 supposes the incapacity of the worker, or his ignorance of the 

 art of skinning out a bird's body from under the wing, as it is 

 based upon the principle (or want of principle !) of " flaying." 



There are many variations of wiring, but, of the foreign 

 methods in vogue with the Italians, French, and Germans, the 

 prettiest, neatest, and best figured is that by Granger.^ 



This wiring and soft-body making may be modified so as 

 to be applicable to the skin opened under the wing, in which 

 case the wiring need not be so elaborate, and a more simple 

 method is as follows : — 



' Manuel du Naturalists, pp. 244-246, Figs. 230, 231, 232. 



