MUTILATION. 19 
$43. Murmarron. 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 blowing off the whole top of a head) that can- 
not be in great measure remedied by care and skill. Sup- 
pose 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 légs 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 forearm 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 
forearm 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 frac- 
tured, the pieces may usually be retained in place by winding 
with thread, or with a touch of glue or mucilage. It is singu- 
lar, by the way, what unsightliness results from a very trifling 
injury to the bill—much, I suppose, as a boil on a person’s 
nose is peculiarly deplorable. I have already hinted how art- 
fully various weak places in a skin, due to mutilation or loss 
of plumage, may be hidden. 
