MAKING SKINS. 
55 
damp weather in a room without a fire. Small 
birds, like warblers, will set perfectly hard in forty- 
eight hours in a moderate temperature with dry 
air. Never allow a skin to freeze. 
Section III. : Making Skins of Long-necked 
Birds. — Sandpipers, thin-necked woodpeckers, or 
any birds, the necks of which are liable to become 
broken, should have a wire placed in the neck to 
support and strengthen it. Proceed in sewing the 
wing-bones as directed in small skins ; then make 
a body of cotton around the end of a wire that has 
about an inch of the end bent into the form of a 
hook, and then the body may be wrapped about the 
wire with some of the winding cotton. The neck- 
wire should project from the body for about the 
same length as the natural neck, or a little more. 
This neck-wire should also be wrapped with cotton 
to the size of the natural neck, but rather thicker 
where it joins the body. A small portion of this 
wire which has been sharpened, as hereafter to be 
directed, should project beyond the body. Now 
place the body in position inside of the skin, forcing 
the point of the wire into the skull, up into the 
base of the upper mandible as far as it will go. 
The heads of long-billed birds may be turned on 
one side, but in this case the bill will be placed 
