44 FIELD ORNITHOLOGY PART I 



hold the stump of the rump ; and with point or handle of scalpel 

 in the other hand, with finger-tips, or with thumb-nail (best), gently 

 press down on and peel away skin.^ No cutting will be required 

 (usually) till you come to the wings : the skin peels off (usually) as 

 easily as an orange-rind ; as fast as it is loosened, evert it ; that is, 

 make it continually turn itself more and more completely inside 

 out. Work thus till you are stopped by the obtruding wings.^ 

 You have to sever the wing from the body at the shoulder, just as 

 you did the leg at the knee, and leave it hanging by skin alone. 

 Take your scissors,^ as soon as the upper arm is exposed, and cut 

 through flesh and bone alike at one stroke, a little below (outside 

 of) the shoulder-joint. Do the same with the other wing. As 

 soon as the wings are severed the body has been skinned to the 

 root of the neck ; the process becomes very easy ; the neck almost 

 slips out of its sheath of itself ; and if you have properly attended 

 to keeping the feathers out of the wound and to continual eversion 

 of the skin, you now find you have a naked body connected dumb- 

 bell-wise by a naked neck to a cap of reversed skin into which 

 the head has disappeared, from the inside of which the legs and 

 wings dangle, and around the edges of which is a row of plumage 

 and a tail.* Here comes up an important consideration : the skin, 

 plumage, legs, wings, and tail together weigh something, — enough 

 to stretch ^ unduly the skin of the neck, from the small cylinder of 



hand, and will help you, at first, with any bird. But there is really no use of it 

 with a small bird, and you may as well learn the best way of working at first as 

 afterward. 



^ The idea of the whole movement is exactly like ungloving your hand from the 

 wrist, by turning the glove inside out to the very finger tips. Some say, pull 

 off the skin ; I say newr pull a bird's skin under any circumstances : push it of, 

 always operating at lines of contact of skin with body, never upon areas of skin 

 already detached. 



2 The elbows will get in your way before you reach the point of attack, namely, 

 the shoulder, unless the wings were completely relaxed (as was essential, indeed, if 

 you measured alar expanse correctly). Think what a difference it would make, were 

 you skinning a man through a slit in the belly, whether his arms were stretched 

 above his head or pinned against his ribs. It is just the same with a bird. When 

 properly relaxed the wings are readily pressed away toward the bird's head, so that 

 the shoulders are encountered before the elbows. 



' Shears will be required to crash through a large arm-bone. Or, you may with 

 the scalpel unjoint the shoulder. The Joint will be found higher up and deeper 

 among the breast muscles than you might suppose, unless you are used to carving 

 fowls at table. With a small bird, you may snap the bone with the thumb-nail and 

 tear asunder the muscles in an instant. 



* You find that the little straight cut you made along the belly has somehow 

 become a hole larger than the greatest girth of the bird ; be undismayed ; it is all 

 right. 



= It you have up to this point properly pushed off the skin instead of pulling it, 

 there is as yet probably no stretching of any consequence ; but, in skinning the 

 head, which comes next, it is almost impossible for a beginner to avoid stretching to 

 an extent involving great damage to the good looks of a skiu. Try your utmost, by 

 delicacy of manipulation at the lines of contact of skin with flesh, and only there, to 



