318 ON PRESERVING BIRDS. 



Pkesekving appear to lie lower than the other ; for unless they are 



Birds. 



quite equal, the wings themselves will be unequal, when 



you come to put them in their proper attitude. Here 

 then rests the shell of the poor hawk, ready to receive, 

 from your skill and judgment, the size, the shape, the 

 features and expression it had, ere death, and your dissect-*- 

 ing hand, brought it to its present still and formless state. 

 The cold hand of death stamps deep its mark upon the 

 prostrate victim. When the heart ceases to beat, and the 

 blood no longer courses through the veins, the features 

 collapse, and the whole frame seems to shrink within 

 itself. If then you liave formed your idea of the real 

 appearance of the bird from a dead specimen, you will be 

 in error. With this in mind, and at the same time forming 

 your specimen a trifle larger than life, to make up for 

 what it will lose in drying, you will reproduce a bird that 

 will please you. 



It is now time to introduce the cotton for an artificial 

 body, by means of the little stick like a knitting needle ; 

 and without any other aid or substance than that of this 

 little stick and cotton, your own genius must produce 

 those swellings and cavities, that just proportion, that 

 elegance and harmony of the whole, so much admired in 

 animated nature, so little attended to in preserved speci- 

 mens. After you have introduced the cotton, sew up the 

 orifice you originally made in the belly, beginning at the 

 vent. And from time to time, till you arrive at the last 



