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bellows is a great help in dusting out skins. Fine hardwood sawdust is very 
good for cleaning the fur of mammals, and will do very well for absorbing 
blood while skinning birds, but is unsatisfactory for drying wet feathers, 
as the sharp, angular points of the wood stick in the feathers, and if the 
barbules are separated in the process of removing the sawdust, the feathers 
will never have their pristine smoothness again. In the laboratory, a damp 
skin may be quickly dried by hanging or holding it close to an electric 
fan. The use of drying powders will be unnecessary and the feathers will 
dry smoothly. 
Though it is often necessary to use water in cleaning plumage, there 
are serious objections to using it on white-plumaged birds, as it dissolves 
fresh blood and the thinned solution stains the feathers. It is almost 
impossible to clean the winter plumage of a ptarmigan by water methods 
without leaving some trace of discoloration. Benzine or carbon tetra- 
chloride, or a mixture of both, will clean fresh or dry blood from feathers, 
and acetone is still better, leaving little if any trace. Acetone of second 
quality, known as “technical,” answers every purpose. Seton (1912) 
recommends a cream made of benzene and plaster of Paris. Let this dry 
on the feathers. It dries as a powder and falls off taking the grease "with 
it. Some residue of plaster will remain to be dusted off, but on white 
plumage it is hardly noticeable. 
Hoyes Lloyd (1928) described a method of cleaning large bird skins 
which had dirt, clay, oil, etc., rubbed into the feathers so that it was 
impossible to clean them by ordinary methods. After fleshing, the skins 
were treated with warm water and soap for 10 or 15 minutes in a 
vacuum cup washing machine, followed by three rinsings in the machine. 
They were then soaked in gasoline overnight and dried in hot hardwood 
sawdust. The sawdust was removed by the blower attachment to an 
ordinary vacuum cleaner. 1 
Windsor (1938) recommends cleaning bird skins by blowing loose dirt 
away with compressed air; then covering the skin with plaster of Paris 
and saturating this with carbon tetrachloride, working it into the feathers. 
When the carbon tetrachloride has evaporated, tap the feathers gently 
with a round stick until the plaster has been dusted out. Blow the residue 
of dust particles away as the last operation. 
Filling a Bird Skin 
After being cleaned and poisoned, the skin should be filled or stuffed 
to some extent, to show the general relation of the different parts. Skins 
of small birds should be stuffed to approximately the natural size, but 
large skins, such as those of swans, geese, large ducks, pelicans, eagles, need 
be only partly filled and the body flattened dorso-ventrally for convenience 
and economy in storing. The neck and back of all bird skins should be 
strengthened with a stiff wire or stick running up into the throat or skull. 
Thin-skinned birds, such as pigeons, whip-poor-wills, nighthawks, swifts, 
woodcock, are particularly fragile, and a heavy head renders the neck very 
apt to be broken off. Skins that are not reinforced with wire or stick 
are almost certain to have the neck broken off sooner or later as the skin 
becomes brittle with age. 
1 See page 19. 
