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In ordinary small birds, the fat is usually not excessive, and is found 
in patches, which may be mostly removed by careful scraping with the 
scalpel. The residue of oil remaining on the skin is quickly absorbed by 
sifting on fine cornmeal or sawdust. If the skin appears oily after shaking 
and scraping off the sawdust, give it another application of the same. 
Fat ducks and other water birds often have the whole inner surface 
of the skin covered with rolls of fat protected by a membranous film. 
With large, fat birds, the best method of attacking this problem is by 
shearing off the film and surface fat with a large pair of shears, using care 
not to cut off the roots of any feathers. This is a tough job, requiring 
considerable muscular effort, but by practice a sort of sheep-shearing 
technique may be developed. The fat removal may be begun with the 
knife, scraping in general away from the tail and in the direction of the 
head. It is useless to try to scrape in a direction contrary to the lay of 
the feathers. The roots of many of the feathers extend through the skin 
into the fatty layer, and the scraping in such cases cannot be very deep 
or vigorous, as the knife or scraper catches the feather roots and pulls the 
feathers through on the inside of the skin. The comparatively open spaces 
between the roots of the patches of contour feathers can generally be 
fairly well cleaned with the scraper, but frequently the only way that fat 
can be removed from the feather-patches is by making long slits through 
the fascia down to the skin between the rows of feather roots. The roots 
are arranged in more or less regular order and the gashes may be made 
criss-cross, leaving each feather root standing in a tiny square. During 
the operations, keep putting on handfuls of dry absorbent and keep scraping 
it off as it becomes saturated with oil. A piece of hacksaw blade is useful 
in reaching the depressions between the roots of the feathers that protrude 
inside the skin. The fascia integument having been opened up by shears, 
knife, and scraper, and the bulk of the loose fat removed, the time has come 
to use dry absorbent in mass. Cornmeal or fine sawdust is warmed in a 
pan, not hot enough to scorch the feathers or skin, and two or three 
handfuls thrown inside the skin and vigorously rubbed and pounded into 
the feather roots. The warm absorbent takes up the oil, is shaken and 
scraped out, and replenished by fresh, warm absorbent until no more oil 
can be raised and the skin may be considered fairly free of grease. 
When nothing better has been available, the writer has cleaned fat 
duck skins with clean, warm beach sand, and although sand is not a good 
absorbent it will soften the grease and help rub it out of the skin. Be care- 
ful not to have the sand too hot as it will shrink the skin badly, if not 
burn it. The best cleaned skins that the writer ever sent out were some 
very fat brant skins which were given to an old Eskimo woman who 
thoroughly chewed over the whole inside of the skin and swallowed the oil. 
The skins were left as clean and soft as chamois skin, but it is not always 
easy to get assistants who like raw goose grease. 
If a fat, white-breasted bird has to be mounted, the opening cut may 
be made along the centre of the back. This keeps the abdomen from 
becoming stained by grease either absorbed by the feathers in the skinning 
process, or leaking out ultimately to soil the plumage. The experience 
of museum curators and owners of large collections is that fat water 
bird skins retain so much grease after any amount of hard scraping that 
