72 FIELD ORNITHOLOGY part i 



The method is chiefly applicable to the large feathers of the wings 

 and tail. Soiled plumage of dried skins may be treated exactly as 

 in the case of fresh skins. 



Mummifleation. — As before mentioned, decay may be arrested 

 by injections of carbolic acid and other antiseptics ; if the tissues be 

 sufficiently permeated with these substances, the body will keep 

 indefinitely; it dries and hardens, becoming, in short, a mummy. 

 Injection should be done by the mouth and vent, be thorough, and 

 be repeated several times as the fluid dries in. It is an improve- 

 ment on this to disembowel and fill the belly with saturated 

 tow or cotton. Due care should be taken not to soil the feathers 

 in any case, nor should the carbolic solution come in contact with 

 the hands, for it is a powerful irritant poison. I mention the 

 process chiefly to condemn it ; I cannot imagine what circumstances 

 would recommend it, while only an extreme emergency could 

 justify it. It is further objectionable because it appears to lend a 

 dingy hue to some plumages, and to dull most of them perceptibly. 

 Birds prepared — rather unprepared — in this way, may be relaxed 

 by the method just described, and then skinned ; but the operation 

 is difficult. 



Wet Preparations. — By this term is technically understood an 

 object immersed in some preservative fluid. It is highly desirable 

 to obtain more information of birds than their stuffed skins can ever 

 furnish, and their structure cannot be always examined by dissection 

 on the spot. In fact, a certain small proportion of the birds of any 

 extensive collecting may be preferably and very profitably preserved 

 in this way. Specimens in too poor plumage to be worth skinning 

 may be thus utilised ; so may the bodies of skinned birds, which, 

 although necessarily defective, retain all the viscera, and also afford 

 osteological material. Alcohol is the liquid usually employed, and, 

 of all the various articles recommended, seems to answer best on 

 the whole. I have used a very weak solution of chloride of zinc 

 with excellent results ; it should not be strong enough to show the 

 slightest turbidity. As glass bottles are liable to break when 

 travelling, do not fit corners, and offer practical annoyance about 

 corkage, rectangular metal cans, preferably of copper, with screw- 

 lid opening, are advisable. They are to be set in small, strong, 

 wooden boxes, made to leave a little room for the lid -wrench, 

 muslin bags for doing up separate parcels, parchment for labels, etc. 

 Unoccupied space in the cans should be filled with tow or a 

 similar substance, to prevent the specimens from swashing about. 

 Labelling should be on parchment ; the writing should be perfectly 

 dry before immersion ; India -ink is the best. Skinned bodies 

 should be numbered to correspond with the dried skin from 

 which taken ; otherwise they may not be identifiable. Large birds 



