58 FIELD ORNITHOLOGY part i 



before skinning, in tte manner described for woodpeckers. Miscel- 

 laneous stains, from the juices of plants, etc., may be received ; all 

 such are treated on general principles. Blood on the beak and feet 

 of rapacious birds, mud on the bill and legs of waders, etc. etc., may 

 be washed off without the slightest difficulty. A land bird that has 

 fallen in the water should be recovered as soon as possible, picked 

 up by the bill, and shaken ; most of the water will run off, unless the 

 plumage is completely soaked. It should be allowed to dry just as 

 it is, without touching the plumage, before being wrapped and 

 bagged. If a bird fall in soft mud, the dirt should be scraped or 

 snapped off as far as this can be done without plastering the feathers 

 down, and the rest allowed to dry ; it may afterward be rubbed 

 fine and dusted off, when no harm will ensue, except to white 

 feathers, which may require washing. 



Mutilation. — You will often be troubled, early in your practice, 

 with broken legs and wings, and various lacerations ; but the injury 

 must be very severe (such as the carrying away of a limb, or blow- 

 ing off the whole top of a head) that cannot be in great measure 

 remedied by care and skill. Suppose a little bird, shot through the 

 neck or small of the back, comes apart while being skinned ; you 

 have only to remove the hinder portion, be that much or little, and 

 go on with the rest as if it were the whole. If the leg-bone of a 

 small bird be broken near the heel, let it come away altogether ; 

 it will make little if any difference. In case of the same accident 

 to a large bird that ought to have the legs wrapped, whittle out a 

 peg and stick it in the hollow stump of the bone ; if there is no 

 stump left, file a piece of stout wire to a point and stick it into 

 the heel joint. If the fore-arm bone that you usually leave in a 

 small bird is broken, remove it and leave the other in ; if both are 

 broken, do not clean the wings so thoroughly that they become 

 detached ; an extra pinch of arsenic will condone the omission. In 

 a large bird, if both bones of the fore-arm are broken, splint them 

 with a bit of wood laid in between, so that one end hitches at the 

 elbow, the other at the wrist. A humerus may be replaced like a 

 leg bone, but this is rarely required. If the skull be smashed, save 

 the pieces, and leave them if you can ; if not, imitate the arch of 

 the head with a firm cotton -ball. A broken tarsus is readily 

 splinted with a pin thrust up through the sole of the foot ; if too 

 large for this, use a pointed piece of wire. There is no mending a 

 bill when part of it is shot away ; for I think the replacing of part 

 by putty, stucco, etc., inadmissible ; but if it be only fractured, the 

 pieces may usually be retained in place by winding with thread, or 

 with a touch of glue or mucilage. I have already hinted how art- 

 fully various weak places in a skin, due to mutilation or loss of 

 plumage, may be hidden. 



