lining, tail muscles, and vertebrae forward of the large quills. Use care not to cut skin around tail, as at knee.

With bird still held on end, start peeling skin down over back and sides. Use scalpel if skin adheres tightly.

When pelvis is uncovered, if a small bird, take rump between two forefingers and thumb of left hand; if a large bird, hang up on a wire hook and cord, and skin down to shoulders.

Press wings forward strongly to loosen joint muscles. Cut through one shoulder joint and then other, going carefully as at knee and tail, so as not to cut skin on opposite side.

Plug with cotton or dry with meal wherever necessary to stop flowing blood.

Next peel the neck skin down over head to bill, pulling out ear linings when met with and using care to work close to skull when cutting eyelids free.

When this is done, cut off base of skull. With this the skin is free from the body and inside out.

If the specimen is of a species with neck skin too small to peel over the head, turn head and neck back right side out when neck is only partly skinned down. Make an incision from middle of back of head down nearly half length of neck, alongside where nape is bare of feathers. Through this incision turn and clean the head.

With the skin removed, turn attention to details of cleaning away leg, wing, and tail muscles, removing eyes, brain, and jaw muscles from skull and scraping out whatever fat is in the skin.

To clean leg bones, skin out the thick, meaty shins, using thumb nail and scalpel to aid where necessary, down to heel joint or upper end of tarsus. Just above this joint sever the tendons, front and back, and peel leg muscles off.

In owls skin on down the tarsus to as near foot, or toes, as possible and clean out tarsus muscles.

In large birds, next split ball of foot, insert point of a steel spindle under base of tarsus tendons beside hind toe and draw these cords out. This will sometimes require a strong pull.

Always do this after the leg above has been cleaned. In small birds it is not necessary to split ball of foot nor to remove these tendons.

Next remove the wing muscles. Peel skin down to elbow. Cut tendons free just above elbow and strip muscles off. To clean forearm in a small bird, use the thumb nail to shove skin forward toward wrist, on front of wing, without breaking union of large, secondary flight feathers with wing bone.

With scalpel cut and lift out elbow ends of forearm muscles, strip them out down to as near wrist as possible and cut off.

In a large bird, split skin of forearm and hand along under side after carefully separating feathers over bare strips of skin. Peel skin back both ways and remove flesh neatly. Scrape out whatever flesh is in evidence on hand bones in same way. In a bird with no fat adhering to the skin, the skull and tail only remain to be cleaned in order to complete the skinning operation.

To clean skull, remove eyes with a scalpel, scrape brains out through cut-off skull base, and trim away jaw muscles and a portion of roof of mouth.

To clean tail, peel it out carefully and scrape and cut away fat and meat adhering to bone and base of quills.

If you have a specimen with fat adhering to the skin in more or less loose patches, as in hawks and owls, simply scrape or peel the fat off with a knife and thumb and finger.

If a fat duck skin is to be prepared the inside layer of skin over the fat tracts must be sheared off carefully with scissors and the fat then removed with a skin scraper or dull knife blade, care being exercised not to tear the outer skin or to pull through feathers with the grease.

To clean and degrease a bird skin which requires such treatment to prepare for mounting, wash it first in lukewarm ammonia water with mild soap. Squeeze from this washing and put through a bath of half-and-half alcohol and spirits of turpentine. Squeeze from this thoroughly and run through benzine. Compress and relax the skin repeatedly while immersed in both these baths. When squeezed from the benzine, dry the plumage by first burying the skin for some minutes in dry plaster of paris.

When nearly all the moisture is drawn out dust skin in the plaster until natural fluffiness is restored. Do this last out of doors, where the skin may be beaten well when thoroughly dry, to free it of plaster dust. Lay skin, right side out, over the left hand and beat with the right, giving an occasional shaking, the better to loosen plaster dust.

Fig. 2.

An A1 duster may be made from the brush of an ox tail. Nail this on a short piece of broomstick and square ends of hair with scissors. This duster is used instead of beating the plumage with the hand and does the work much quicker and better. When the dusting is done turn the skin inside out again (see Fig. 2) and brush arsenic-water into all inner surfaces, then turn skin right side out and brush a little of the solution upon the feet, under side of wings, and inside the bill.

When poisoning the head, with skin inside out, one step in preparation for mounting is to be taken. After the arsenic-water is applied to skull and scalp, fill eye sockets with chopped tow or fine excelsior, put a light layer of cotton smoothly around the skull, forward edge close down to bill. Turn skin carefully back over skull and finish poisoning skin.

It is best, if possible to do without risk of decay, to fold the freshly prepared skin in a clean paper, wrap in damp cloth, and lay over one night in a cool place, before mounting. This allows arsenic-water to penetrate through into base of plumage, thus becoming more effective against moths than if skin were immediately filled with absorbent material which would tend to draw out the freshly applied solution.

With the skin preparation completed, construction of an artificial body is the next step. In all bird work, upholstery excelsior or "wood wool" will be found most satisfactory for body making and neck, wing, and leg wrapping. This may be found at almost any upholstery shop, as is also tow, a fine grade of which is needed in making bird necks, as chopped, soft filling, etc.

A good grade of long-fiber cotton is needed for wrapping skulls and wing and leg bones in small birds, etc.

Various sizes of strong thread, both black and white, and some small, strong, ball twine will be needed for wrapping and sewing.

When making the artificial body, lay the outline sketches before you and copy Nature's lines throughout the work of assembling the specimen.

To make a firm core for the body, take a thick wisp of excelsior twice the length of the natural body and small or large according to specimen. Hold this tightly in the left hand, wrapping it very hard with thread or cord. Wrap the squeezed excelsior where it protrudes from between thumb and forefinger of left hand, drawing cord tight at each round, paying out the wisp until all is wrapped hard (see Fig. 3).