28 
FIELD OENITHOLOGY. 
table, to hitch your hook to, if you hang your birds up to skin them ; they should swing clear 
of everything. The table should have a large general drawer, with a little drawer for gypsum 
and arsenic already mentioned, unless these be kept elsewhere. Stuffing may be kept in a box 
under the table, and make a nice footstool ; or in a bag slung to the table leg. 
Query : Have you cleansed the bird's plumage ? Have you plugged the mouth, nostrils, 
and vent? Have you measured the specimen and noted the color of the eyes, bill, and feet, 
and prepared the labels, and made the entry in the register ? Have you got all your apparatus 
within arm's length ? Then we are ready to proceed. 
§7. — HOW TO MAKE A BIRD SKIN. 
a. The Eegular Process. 
Lay the Bird on its Back, the bill pointing to your right ^ elbow. Take the scalpel like 
a pen, with edge of blade uppermost, and run a straight furrow through the feathers along the 
middle line of the belly, from end of the breast-bone to the vent. Part the feathers com- 
pletely, and keep them parted.^ Observe a strip of skin either perfectly naked, or only cov- 
ered with short down ; this is the line for incision. Take scissors, stick in the pointed blade 
just over the end of the breast- bone, cut in a straight line thence to and into the vent; cut 
extremely shallow.^ 
Take the forceps in your left hand, and scalpel in your right, both held pen-wise, and with. 
the forceps seize and lift up one of the edges of the cut skin, gently pressing away the belly- 
walls with the scalpel-point ; no cutting is required ; the skin may be peeled off without trouble. 
Skin away till you meet an obstacle ; it is the thigh. Lay down the instruments ; with your 
left hand take hold of the leg outside at the shank; put your right forefinger under the raised 
flap of skin, and feel a bump ; it is the knee ; push up the leg till this bump comes into view ; 
hold it so. Take the scissors in your right hand ; tuck one blade under the concavity of the 
knee, and sever the joint at a stroke ; then the thigh is left with the rest of the body, while 
the rest of the leg is dissevered and hangs only by skin. Push the leg farther up till it has 
slipped out of its sheath of skin, like a finger out of a glove, down to the heel-joint. You 
have now to clear off the flesh and leave the bone there ; you may scrape till this is done, 
but there is a better way. Stick the closed points of the scissors in among the muscles just 
below the head of the bone, then separate the blades just wide enough to grasp the bone ; 
snip off its head ; draw the head to one side ; all the muscles follow, being there attached ; 
strip them doivmvard from the bone ; the bone is left naked, with the muscle hanging by a 
bundle of tendons (''leaders") at its foot; sever these tendons collectively at a stroke. This 
whole performance will occupy about three seconds, after practice ; and you may soon discover 
you can nick off the head of the bone of a small bird with the thumb-nail. Draw the leg bone 
back into its sheath, and leave it. Repeat all the foregoing steps on the other side of the bird. 
If you are bothered by the skin-flaps settling against the belly-walls, insert a fluff of cotton. 
1 Reverse this and following directions for position , if you are left-handed. 
2 The motion is exactly like stroking the right and left sides of a moustache apart ; you would never dress 
the hairs smoothly away from the middle line, by poking from ends to root : nor will the feathers stay aside, 
unless stroked away from base to tips. 
3 The skin over the belly is thin as tissue paper in a small bird; the chances are you will at first cut the 
walls of the belly too, opening the cavity ; this is no great matter, for a pledget of cotton will keep the bowels in; 
nevertheless, try to divide skin only. Reason for cutting into vent: this orifice makes a nice natural termination 
of the incision, buttonhole-wise, and may keep the end of the cut from tearing around the root of the tail. Reason 
for beginning to cut over the edge of the sternum : the muscular walls of the belly are very thin, and stick so close 
to the skin that you may be in danger of attempting to remove them with the skin, instead of removing the skin 
from them ; whereas, you cannot remove anything but skin from over the breast bone, so you have a guide at the 
start. You can tell skin from belly-wall, by its livid, translucent wliitisliness instead of redness. 
