MAKING BIRDSKINS. 05

with meal. 2. Lay the bird before you on its back. its bill pointing,r to the left; place youropcn left hand lengthwise on it. so that the base of your first and second fingers rests on the middle of the breast- bone; use these fingers and the handle of the scalpel to separate the feathers from near the end of the breastbone to the vent, and when the parting is made use the same fingers to hold the feathers aside. 3. With the scalpel make an incision in the skin from just in front of the end of the breastbone. or at the base of the V formed by the spread fingers. to the vent, being careful not to out through into the abdomen. 4. Sprinkle a pinch of meal alongr the cut. 5. Lift the skin at the front end of the cut and insert the end of the scalpel handle between it and the breastbone. If you try to do this lower down on the cut, over the belly, you will find it difficult to separate the skin on which the feathers grow from the immediately underlying,r skin which covers the abdomen. Separate the skin from the body the whole length of the cut and as far down toward the backbone as possible, thus exposing,r the bare knee. 6. Take hold of the foot and push the knee farther up into view. then take the blunt-ended scissors and, on the inside of the skin, clip the leg entirely in two. 7. Repeat opera- tions 5 and 6 on the other side of tlie‘body. 8. Press away the skin as much as possible on either side of the ramp. and place the thumb at the left side (left, seen from above) of the base of the tail or “ pope‘s nose," with the first finger on the other side (both inside the skin) and the second finger behind (above) on the rump; now with the blunt scissors cut through the flesh between the thumb and first finger toward the second finger, which serves the purpose of a guard to pre- vent you, from cutting.r through the skin. 9. Stand the bird on its breastbone. the belly toward you, and with both thumbs press the tail and skin of the rump over and down off the stump from which you have just cut it. 10. When the sttunp is free from the skin. take hold of it with the right hand and with the fingers of the left gently press the skin from the body. keeping it constantly turned inside out and using an abundance of meal. 11. Soon the wing—bones (humerus) will appear. Clip them off at either side close to the body. and re— stune skinning: as before. 1‘3. The skin will slip easily over the neck. and you will then meet with an obstruction in the head. 13. \Vork the skin carefully over the head. using the tips of the first two fingers of either hand, placing;r the thumbs as a brace farther forward over the eytsfi" 14. Pull the ears carefully from their sockets. 15. The eyes

" In largerhemied birds. like Ducks and Woodpeckers. this is impossible, and it is necessary to slit the skin down the back of the neck and push the skull through the opening.