114 PRACTICAL TAXIDERMY. 



sublimate in alcohol, also a stick like a common knitting needle, and a 

 handful or two of cotton. 



Now fill the mouth and nostrils of the bird with cotton, and place 

 it upon your knee on its back with its head pointing to your left; 

 shoulder. Take hold of the knife with your two first fingers and 

 thumb, the edge upwards. You must not keep the point of the knife 

 perpendicular to the body of the bird, because, were you to hold it so, 

 you would cut the inner skin of the belly and thus let the bowels out. 

 To avoid this, let your knife be parallel to the body, and then you 

 will divide the outer skin with great ease. 



Begin on the belly below the breastbone, and cut down the middle 

 quite to the vent. This done, put the bird in any convenient position, 

 and separate the skin from the body till you get at the middle joint 

 of the thigh. Cut it through, and do no more there at present, except 

 introducing cotton all the way on that side from the vent to the 

 breastbone. Do exactly the same on the opposite side. 



Now place the bird perpendicular, the breast resting on your knee, 

 with its back towards you. Separate the skin from the body on each 

 side at the vent, and never mind at present the part from the vent to 

 the root of the tail. Bend the tail gently down to the back, and while 

 your fingers and thumb are keeping down the detached parts of the 

 skin on each side of the vent, cut quite across and deep till you see the 

 backbone near the oil gland at the root of the tail. Sever the back, 

 bone at the joint, and then all the root of the tail together, with the 

 oil gland dissected from the body. Apply plenty of cotton. 



After this seize the end of the backbone with the finger and thumb, 

 and now you can hold up the bird clear of your knee and turn it round: 

 and round as occasion requires. 



While you are holding it thus, contrive, with the help of your other 

 hand and knife, by cutting and shoving, to get the skin pushed up 

 till you come to where the wings join on the body. 



Forget not to apply cotton ; cut these joints through, add cotton, 

 and gently push the skin over the head, cut out the roots of the 

 cars, which lie very deep in the head, and continue skinning till you 

 reach the middle ot the eye; cut the nictating membrane quite 

 through, otherwise you would tear the orbit of the eye ; and after 

 this nothing diflficult intervenes to prevent your arriving at the root, 

 of the biU. 



When this is effected cut away the body, leaving a little bit of skull, 

 just as much as will reach to the fore-part of the eye, clean well the 

 jaw bones, fasten a little cotton at the end of your stick, dip it into 



