48 
FIELD OBNITHOLOGY. 
should be done by the mouth and vent, be thorough, and be repeated several times as the 
fluid dries in. It is an improvement on this to disembowel and fill the belly with saturated 
tow or cotton. Due care should be taken not to soil the feathers in any case, nor should the 
carbolic solution come in contact with the hands, for it is a powerful irritant poison. I mention 
the process chiefly to condemn it as an atrocious one ; I cannot imagine what circumstances 
would recommend it, while only an extreme emergency could justify it. It is further objection- 
able because it appears to lend a dingy hue to some plumages, and to dull most of them 
perceptibly. Birds prepared — rather unprepared — in this way, may be relaxed by the 
method just described, and then skinned ; but the operation is rather diflScult. 
Wet Preparations. — By this term is technically understood an object immersed in some 
preservative fluid. It is highly desirable to obtain more information of birds than their stuffed 
skins can ever furnish, and their structure cannot be always examined by dissection on the 
spot. In fact, a certain small proportion of the birds of any protracted or otherwise heavy " 
collecting may be preferably and very profitably preserved in tliis way. Specimens in too 
poor plumage to be worth skinning may be tlius utilized ; so may the bodies of skinned birds, 
which, although necessarily defective, retain all the viscera, and also afford osteological mate- 
rial. Alcohol is the liquid usually employed, and, of all the various articles recommended, 
seems to answer best on the whole. I have used a very weak solution of chloride of zinc with 
excellent results ; it should not be strong enough to show the slightest turbidity. As glass 
bottles are liable to break when travelling, do not fit corners, and offer practical annoyance 
about corkage, rectangular metal cans, preferably of copper, with screw-lid opening, are 
advisable. They are to be set in small, strong, wooden boxes, made to leave a little room for 
the lid wrench, muslin bags for doing up separate parcels, parchment for labels, etc. Unoc- 
cupied space in the cans should be filled with tow or a similar substance, to prevent the 
specimens from swashing about. Labelling should be on parchment ) the writing should be 
perfectly dry before immersion ; india-ink is the best. Skinned bodies should be numbered to 
correspond with the dried skin from which taken; otherwise they may not be identifiable. 
Large birds thrown in unskinned should have the belly opened, to let in the alcohol freely. 
Birds may be skinned, after being in alcohol, by simply drying them : they often make fair 
specimens. They are best withdrawn by the bill, that the ' ' swash " of the alcohol at the 
moment of emersion may set the plumage all one way, and hung up to dry untouched. 
Watery moisture that may remain after evaporation of the alcohol may be dried with plaster. 
Figs. 1, 2. — Views of sternum and pectoral arch of the ptarmigan, Lagopus alhus, reduced; after A. New- 
ton. 1, lateral view, with the bones upside down; 2, viewed from below, a, sternum or breast-bone, showing two 
long slender lateral processes; h, ends of sternal ribs; c, ends of humerus, or upper arm-bone, near the shoulder- 
joint; d, scapula, or shoulder-blade; e, coracoid; /, merry-thought, or furculum (clavicles). 
Osteological and other Preparations (figs. 1-3). — While complete skeletonizing of 
a bird is a special art of some difficulty, and one that does not fall within the scope of this 
treatise, I may mention two bony preparations very readily made, and susceptible of rendering 
