576 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Oct. io, 1908. 
How to Skin a Bird. 
f Concluded from page 536. 
Before starting to skin your bird you will, of 
course, have provided yourself with something 
with which to stuff the skin, to take the place 
of the body and neck which you have just re¬ 
moved. You ought also to have some preserva¬ 
tive, something to keep the insects from eating 
the skin, which to certain beetles is very accept¬ 
able food. Of these preservatives dried arsenic 
is by all means the most ' convenient and all 
things considered the best. It is most easily 
carried in a wide-mouthed corked glass bottle 
or tin. The powder is fine, and if you carry it 
in any ordinary box or tin with a screw top, it 
is likely to sift out, and find its way everywhere 
through your clothing. If you have the arsenic, 
good. If not, a little table salt will do for a 
temporary preservative, but it will not have any 
lasting effect, and moreover makes the skin very 
slow to dry. 
We will assume that you have some stuffing 
material. For birds of moderate size the best is 
cotton, but if you have no cotton, tow or the 
fine shavings known as excelsior or even dried 
grass will answer. 
Your skin being freed from the body and still 
inside out, go over it now from head down to 
the neck, removing all flesh and fat that may be 
attached to it, but being very careful not to 
stretch the skin unduly, and not to cut through it. 
At the point where the wings have been cut 
off you will find plenty of muscle. Take the 
broken large wing bone—the humerus—and 
holding it between your thumb and knife blade 
pull it out from the skin and push the skin down 
on what you might call the second bone of the 
wing, which consists of the radius and ulna. 
These, of course, represent the two bones in 
the human arm which lie between the elbow and 
the wrist. To the largest of these, those feathers 
of the wing called secondaries are quite firmly 
attached in a long line. After you have freed 
the skin from all the wing muscles that you can, 
cut away the humerus at the joint between it 
and the radius and ulna, and then standing the 
wing on the table on its point, that is to say, on 
the joint which corresponds to the human wrist, 
with the radius and ulna standing vertical, press 
with your thumb nail on the uppermost of the 
quill feathers, freeing it from its attachment and 
let your thumb nail sweep down over the bone 
until all these quill feathers are free. Then 
remove the muscle and tendon which lies be¬ 
tween the radius and ulna, leaving those two 
bones sticking out of the inverted skin of the 
wing. Do the same on the other side. 
Now go over the skin down toward the tail, 
carefully, removing all fat and flesh. When 
you come to the legs, it is simple to draw out 
the tibia, the bone which you left when you cut 
through the joint of the knee, and to remove 
from that bone and from the skin about it all 
the leg muscles that were left there. When 
this has been done with both legs, go about the 
tail and cut away all the flesh and fat that is 
found there. In the water birds large oil 
glands are found on either side of the tail, and 
these must be thoroughly eradicated before the 
skin is “made up.” Now, if you have it, give 
the entire inner surface of the skin a thorough 
dusting with the dry arsenic. See especially that 
it is abundantly supplied about the head, wings, 
legs and tail. Do not be afraid to put on too 
much. Now, roll up two little balls of cotton 
a little larger than the eyeballs and stuff them 
into the orbits. Take two or three shreds of 
cotton and wrap them about the leg bones. 
Now, you must turn your skin right side out 
again. With a slender but stiff twig introduced 
into the brain cavity, slowly thrust the skull of 
the bird back into the neck so as to reverse the 
turning process performed in taking out the 
bird’s body. You will find, that by working 
slowly the skull will slip through the neck, and 
that presently you will see the bill of the bird, 
when you can take hold of it, and by gently 
pulling—a little at a time, first on one side and 
then on the other—you can right the skin. Be 
careful, however, not to pull the neck out any 
longer than you are obliged to. If in pushing 
the skull back through the neck the point of the 
bill should catch in the skin, stop pushing, and 
by pulling the skin this way and that free the 
point of the bill and continue the reversal of 
the skin. If by any chance you should have 
been so long at the work that the skin of the 
neck is dried and does not seem large enough 
to permit the skull to pass back through it, 
moisten the flesh surface, and it will stretch 
again. When the head has passed through, and 
the skin is thus reversed, it is a simple matter 
to turn back the skin of the body so that it is 
right side out all around. Now, pull out the 
wings and give them a shake so that the feathers 
may fall into place, and pull out the legs. Your 
bird is skinned and reversed, and is ready for 
its filling. 
For most birds the directions given will suffice, 
but there are some birds—for example the ducks 
—in which the neck is so narrow that the skin 
cannot be pushed down over the skull. The 
ruddy ducks and the old squaw have thick necks 
and the skull will slip through, but the canvas- 
back, mallard, woodduck and most other ducks 
have to be treated differently. In these birds, 
after you have worked the skin down on the 
neck almost to the head, you will have to cut 
off the neck, and make another cut to take out 
the skull. First, however, go over your skin and 
clean it as just directed; then when you have 
reversed it, take the end of the duck’s bill in 
your left hand, and beginning at a point in the 
middle line of the top of the head, just back of 
the eyes, make a lengthwise cut in the middle 
line down to the nape of the neck. It is easy 
to skin down on both sides of the head, using 
care about the eyes and ears, and through the 
opening in the skin at the top of the head to turn 
out the skull with the little fragment of the neck 
that is attached to it. Use your drying material 
freely so as to keep the head feathers clean. Re¬ 
move the eyes, tongue, fragment of neck and 
brain, as already advised, poison the skull with 
your dried arsenic, place cotton in the orbits, 
turn the skull back into the skin, and then with 
a fine needle and thread sew up the cut, begin¬ 
ning at its forward end. On most ducks the 
crown feathers are long, and by using a little 
care in your sewing, these crown feathers will 
entirely conceal the seam. You must give your 
duck skin a heavy dose of the poison. 
The specimen now lies before you right side 
out, and having much the shape of a bird, but 
the skin entirely empty. The neck and body are 
both longer than they were in the dead bird, for 
it is almost certain that in the operation of tak¬ 
ing it off you have stretched the skin. You 
must now try to get it back to about the same 
length that it was in the bird. 
Remembering that this instruction is not for 
the naturalist who is going to make a business 
of making bird skins, but is for the individual 
who merely wishes now and then to* save the 
skin of some unusual specimen, the following 
directions will apply: Take a slender stick, not 
quite as long as the neck and body of the bird— 
you can measure it on the neck and body which 
still lie by you—and wrap it around the 
stick for a distance equal to the length of the 
bird’s neck. Then supporting the skin of the 
neck by your left hand introduce this false neck 
into the opening in the skin and push it to¬ 
ward the bird’s head, slowly and carefully pull¬ 
ing the skin down all around it until the end of 
the stick has reached the bird’s skull and has 
been introduced into the cavity in the skull which 
was left after the brain was removed. Be care¬ 
ful not to pull the skin toward you, but rather 
to pull it from side to side so as to make a way 
for the end of the stick; try to open the neck 
of the bird so that the stick may pass through 
it rather than to pull the skin down over the 
stick and its wrapping. This work may be much 
more easily done and the stick may be dis¬ 
pensed with if you have a pair of long forceps 
for a long-necked bird or short forceps for a 
short-necked bird. In that case you merely roll 
up the cotton or tow into a long wad about the 
size of the bird’s neck, and grasping the upper 
end of that with the end of the forceps, and 
having the remainder of the wad run down to¬ 
ward your right hand you introduce the false 
neck into the skin and work it to its place by 
manipulation of the forceps. 
When the end of the stick is pressed well into 
the skull, you should hold the stick and the 
breast feathers firmly in the hand, and then pull¬ 
ing the skin of the neck this way and that, and 
working it up on the false neck toward the head, 
you will find that the neck will be reduced in 
length and thickened, and will soon come to look 
somewhat like the neck of the bird before the 
skinning took place. Now, with a match, or 
some other stiff but slender stick, introduce into 
the bird’s mouth a little wad of cotton and 
push it down into the throat just below the 
beak. The purpose of this is to give a fullness 
to the throat and if properly done it will make 
the head look more natural than it did. The 
tendency of this filling, however, is to make the 
feathers of the throat stand on end, but they 
will lie down again if after the cotton has been 
introduced to the throat you can give it a little 
pull toward the opening of the mouth, and then 
smooth the throat feathers down wittr your 
finger. Now close the bill and thrust a pin into 
the bird’s chin through the skin up into the roof 
of the mouth at such an angle that the pressure 
of the pin on the lower mandible will keep the 
bill closed. Take another pin, and introduce it 
into the eye opening on either side and loosen 
and pull outward the cotton that fills the orbit. 
This will give a fullness to the eyes and sides 
of head which will make the bird look more 
natural. Reach down into the skin on either 
side and secure the ends of the wing bones 
that have been left, and with thread or fine 
string loosely tie the two sides together, leaving 
a little play between the two. Take two wads of 
Continued on page 597 . 
