82 
80C. OF AM. TAXIDERMISTS, ANNUAL REPORT. 
number of years, and I can heartily recommend it as the simplest 
and best known to me, and one that will give complete satisfac- 
tion. 
HOW TO MAKE A GOOD BIRD SKIN. 
BY S, F. BATHBXJN. 
With a little care it is just as easy to make a good bird skin as 
a poor one. Most poor skins are made more tlirough careless- 
ness alone than almost anything else. Of course during the col- 
le{;ting season when the birds are passing through and one must, 
in order to get a good stock of them, work rapidly, the skins 
will not average quite as well in make as when there is less to 
do ; but with a proper amount of carefulness and painstaking, 
at the end of the season you may have on hand as good a lot of 
skins as one might wish for, and the satisfaction a person gets 
from looking over a lot of fine skins more than pays for the little 
extra care taken to achieve this end. 
Let us now look and see what/ewj points it is necessary to know 
in order to do good work. Taking a small bird for instance; 
after the process of removing the skin in the usual manner, 
which it is not necessary to repeat here, and having properly pre- 
pared tlie head by removing the brain and eyes, fill the eye- 
sockets wdth cotton, dust with the preservative, and reverse the 
skin as far as the neck. Having skinned the wing bones — and I 
always leave both bones of the wing if possible — dust with pre- 
servative and reverse the skin. 
Now, see that around the head and neck it is smooth and neat. 
Partially pull out the wads of cotton in the eye-sockets and make 
a well-formed eye. 
Having attended to these minor details, we now have tlie skin 
laying on its back and ready for putting into shape, which is the 
trick so hard to get. 
Next, take a piece of cotton and roll ])etween tiie hands until 
it attains the shape of a lead pencil and is about the size of the 
