PRESERVING COLOUR OF LEGS, ETC. 85 
PRESERVING THE COLOUR OF THE LEGS 
AND BILLS OF STUFFED BIRDS. 
I CONSIDER it impossible to preserve the colours 
unimpaired in the legs of stuffed birds. I have 
seen the lake-coloured leg of the beautiful yawar* 
raciri of Guiana lose every particle of the red ; 
and I have found that no external application can 
preserve the fine colours in the legs of the scarlet 
curlew, the trumpeter, the water-hen of Guiana, 
and many other birds too numerous to mention. 
I / Under the outward scale of the leg, in the living 
' bird, are substances from which the leg derives its 
colour. They fade in time after the death of the 
bird, and then the whole complexion of the leg is 
I changed. Perhaps you might partially succeed in 
I renewing the faded colours of the leg, by means of 
paint mixed up with water : at best it is a bad busi- 
ness. The legs of birds stuffed on the old system 
i are so shrunk and hideous to the eye, that, in my 
opinion, their colour is a mere secondary consider- 
ation. In the bills of birds, the colours are either 
produced from internal substances, as in the base 
of the lower mandible of the toucan ; or inherent 
in the horn or bone itself, as in the cassique. In 
either case, dissection is absolutely necessary, if 
you wish to have the beauty of the bill retained or 
I renewed. 
G 3 
