40 collector's manual 



pack separately from made-up skins. In large birds turn the 

 head on the breast to make a more compact specimen. In damp 

 climates where salted specimens will not dry, instead of salting, 

 poison the inside of the skin with arsenic and alum and dry. Such 

 specimens can be made up by the museum taxidermists. 



If specimens are to be kept in the field for some time, they 

 should be exposed to the air until thoroughly dried. If the 

 weather is wet and drying is difficult, expose the wrapped skins 

 to the sun or before a campfire on every occasion until they are 

 really dry. Then pack in a box with naphthalene flakes to keep 

 out insects. Specimens should be rolled in fairly stiff paper before 

 shipping away and packed firmly enough so that they cannot 

 shift about but not so tightly that they will be crushed. Many 

 well-prepared skins have been ruined by careless packing. Large 

 and small skins should be packed separately. The smaller kinds 

 may be packed in cardboard boxes which may then be placed in 

 a larger, wooden box. 



Eggs. — Special drills and a blowpipe to be obtained only from 

 dealers in natural-history supplies are necessary to prepare eggs. 

 Eggs should be collected in sets, that is, all the eggs from one nest 

 should be kept together. 



Each set of eggs should be accompanied by a label giving name 

 of the bird or the number of the skin of the parent, date, locality, 

 and a note as to whether the eggs were fresh or much incubated. 

 Eggs collected without seeing the parent bird at the nest are 

 worthless, as they cannot be positively identified. If possible, 

 collect the parent bird and send it in with the eggs. When num- 

 bers of eggs are collected, each set should be packed so that the 

 labels will not be mixed. It may be necessary to use numbers 



