Oct. 3, 1908.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
535 
How <0 Skin a Bird. 
The naturalist, of course, knows how to skin 
a bird and this is not written for him. There 
are, however, many sportsmen and especially 
many young shooters who are just beginning, 
who from time to time may well enough wish 
to preserve specimens of the birds that they 
secure, not necessarily to make a collection of 
birds, but perhaps only in order to learn the 
name of some specimen with which they are 
unacquainted. It is quite common for the 
gunner—even for the experienced sportsman— 
to see or to kill a bird that he does not recog¬ 
nize. If he merely looks at it—no matter how 
carefully—the chances are that a week later he 
will be unable to give an intelligent description 
of it, for many gunners are not good observers 
and get only a general impression of a bird from 
merely looking at it. If, however, the bird 
seems interesting enough to the gunner to 
make him willing to take the trouble to skin it, 
he can then take the specimen to some one 
familiar with birds, and can have it named. 
In different parts of the country the same bird 
may be called by different names. The wood¬ 
cock of the North is, of course, a very different 
bird from what is called the woodcock in some 
portions of the South, which is locally a wood¬ 
pecker. It is worth while, therefore, always to 
get the person who identifies a bird for you to 
write down not only its English, but also its 
Latin name. With these two you cannot make 
a mistake. 
To skin any bird of moderate size, that is to 
say, any bird up to the size of a duck or a 
goose, no implement is needed except a pen¬ 
knife, but that pen-knife should have a blade 
at least two inches long, which should be sharp. 
An ordinary dissecting scalpel is a much more 
handy tool, and more effective and quicker 
work can be done with it than with a pen-knife. 
Such a scalpel, with the blade stuck in a piece 
of sole leather, takes up little or no room in 
a man’s kit and is a very convenient tool. An 
ordinary dissecting case, holding two or three 
of these scalpels, a pair of small forceps, and a 
little ring to which are attached two or three 
small chains with hooks at the end, takes up 
little room and is still more convenient. Never¬ 
theless, as has been said, you can get along with 
your pocket knife. 
Suppose you are duck shooting and you kill 
some queer duck whose like you have never seen 
before, and to which your guide or boatman can 
give no name. For all you know, it may be a 
new species or a wanderer from some far dis¬ 
tant clime. Its occurrence here may be of con¬ 
siderable scientific interest, and it certainly seems 
a pity that the feathers should be plucked off 
it and it should go into the pot, without anyone 
in the world knowing that it has been killed in 
this particular place. It seems well worth while 
to save such a specimen. If you think so, too, 
have the guide rinse off from the plumage any 
mud or blood that there may be on it, and then, 
after he has smoothed it down, let him put it 
away somewhere where its feathers will be kept 
clean. If the flight is not on and things are 
rather dull, and if you happen to have in one 
of the pockets of your shooting coat a little wad 
of cotton, as you always should have, take the 
bird, thrust into its throat a ball of cotton suffi¬ 
cient to keep any moisture from the crop or 
gullet from coming out of the mouth and soil¬ 
ing the plumage, and if there are shot holes in 
the head or neck, find them, clean away the blood 
from about them, and by twisting a little wisp 
of the cotton around the end of a match, plug 
these holes up so that they will bleed no more. 
If by chance a pellet of shot should have passed 
through one or both eyes you will have trouble 
in making a clean specimen, but even if the 
feathers do get wet with moisture from the eyes, 
you can still have the bird identified, even though 
the specimen is unsightly. 
It is well also to carry in a pocket of your 
shooting coat a newspaper or two in which birds 
may be wrapped up so as to keep their plumage 
from being rumpled and blood soiled. The plum¬ 
age of a duck is heavy and even if it become 
rumpled can generally be smoothed out, either 
by simply rubbing the hand against the feathers 
and then smoothing them down, or if they are 
bent or twisted, by putting water on the plumage 
and rubbing it first the wrong and then the right 
way. If the plumage of a land bird becomes 
badly rubbed or twisted, it is more difficult to 
smooth it again. 
Besides plugging with cotton the throat and 
any shot holes that you can find, it is always a 
little safer to plug the nostrils as well, for often 
blood or moisture leaks out through them. In 
wrapping the bird in newspaper the best way is 
to make a rather long cone of the paper and then 
slip the bird into it head first, afterward twist¬ 
ing the small end of the cone up close to the 
head and folding over the large end, so as to 
keep the bird’s body from slipping backward and 
forward. 
When you are ready to skin your bird get a 
piece of newspaper and spread it on the table, be¬ 
fore which you are to sit while at work. The use 
of the newspaper is not only to keep the table 
clean, but to keep your bird from being rubbed 
back and forth on some unyielding surface, and 
so perhaps ruffle the plumage of the back. Be¬ 
fore you begin the work of skinning provide 
yourself, if possible, with a little corn meal in 
a saucer, or if you cannot get corn meal use a 
little flour. The corn meal or flour is to be 
scattered over the flesh laid bare, to absorb and 
keep the juices of the bird from running and so 
to keep the feathers from being stained by them. 
Place the bird on its back on the table, with 
the head away from you and a little to the left. 
With your fingers, or if they are not strong 
enough, with a weight of some kind—a hammer 
or the handle of a heavy knife will do—break 
the first bones of the wings close up to the body. 
This will enable you to push the wing on either 
side up toward the bird’s head, and will keep 
the wings out of your way. Look again at your 
specimen, and see that the throat, the nostrils 
and the shot holes are well plugged. If any of 
the shot holes seem to be exuding moisture, use 
a pinch of the meal or flour to complete the 
plugging of the hole. Now with your left hand 
resting on the bird’s breast, part with the thumb 
and forefinger the feathers of the breast and 
belly down nearly to the tail, and make an in¬ 
cision in the skin beginning half way down the 
breast bone and running to the tail. Be careful 
not to cut too deep, and if possible avoid pass¬ 
ing the knife through the walls of the belly. 
Your object is merely to cut the skin. After 
the knife has passed through the skin over the 
whole length of the cut, press the skin away 
from the cut with the thumb and forefinger of 
the left hand, and then, grasping the skin with 
the thumb and forefinger of the left hand, raise 
it from the lower breast and belly walls, and 
by short cuts separate it from the flesh and 
muscle that lie beneath the skin. After the skin 
beneath at any one point is well raised from 
what lies beneath it, stop cutting, and with the 
back of the knife push down the flesh and raise 
up the skin. You will find that it will strip 
easily. However, you must avoid pulling on 
the skin, for the less you stretch it the more 
easily it will come into place when it is wholly 
taken off. 
If you are using a scalpel and not your pocket 
knife, you will find the handle of the scalpel very 
useful in separating the skin from the flesh be¬ 
neath, and you will be surprised to find how 
easily and quickly the work goes. Before long 
you will have so far lifted the skin from the 
belly and sides of the bird that you will see or 
feel the bird’s knee on the left hand side. When you 
reach this point, stop work on that side and begin 
on the right and there repeat just what you did 
on the other side until the knee is seen or felt 
on that side. You will now have worked off 
the skin on both sides over the whole length 
of the cut, that is to say, from the middle of the 
breast down nearly or quite to the tail, working 
the handle of your scalpel around toward the 
back on either side as far as you can. 
Now with the left hand take hold of the foot 
on your left and push it forward. This will 
thrust the bird’s knee up into plain sight and 
you can insert the point of your knife below the 
joint and rest your thumb on top of J:he joint 
and readily cut through it. If the bird should 
be a very large one, it may be more convenient 
for you to cut the tendons on top of the joint 
and to work through it more slowly and deliber¬ 
ately, but with a bird the size of a quail, ruffed 
grouse or duck you can easily cut through the 
joint as explained a moment ago. When this 
has been done there will still be a good deal 
of the muscle of the leg lying against the skin 
of the side. Put the fingers of your left hand 
against this skin on the outside among the 
feathers and then with your knife carefully cut 
through the muscle until you have reached the 
skin. You can tell by feeling with the fingers 
of the left hand just how far you can cut. When 
this muscle has been divided, work the skin down 
outside of the bird's thigh well toward the back, 
then repeat the operation on the other side. Dur¬ 
ing all this time you will do well to make free 
use of the drying material in your saucer, so as 
to keep the plumage free from blood, grease and 
other moisture. 
Now comes what is perhaps one of the most 
difficult operations of all, the freeing the bird’s 
tail from its body. Lift the bird up and stand 
it on end on the front of its breast back toward 
you and bend the tail down sharply over the 
bird’s back. This will bring into view the joints 
of the tail bone, the part to which the long tail 
feathers are attached. Take the bird’s tail in 
your left hand and let the forefinger of that 
hand rest on the feathers in the angle which the 
tail makes with the bird’s body. Then with your 
knife cut sharply down through the flesh until 
you meet the tail bone. Let the finger of the 
left hand warn you not to cut too deeply. 
After everything has been cut away except the 
bone of the tail, that is to say, after the muscle 
