Taxidermy and Zoological Collecting. W. J. Holland
Contents
The lives of hundreds of thousands of wild birds have been sacrificed to no purpose by persons claiming to be ornithological collectors, and yet who had not the knowledge, skill, or industry to make up good bird skins. There are now in this country numerous large collections of bird skins that are a sight to behold. The ability to make up fine, clean, shapely, well-preserved skins, and make them rapidly also, is a prime requisite in anyone who aspires to be sent off to interesting "foreign parts" to shoot, collect, and see the world—at the expense of someone else. An aspiring young friend of the writer, whose soul yearned to travel and "collect," missed a fine opportunity to make a very interesting voyage on the Albatross, for the sole reason that with all his yearning he could not make good bird skins—and it served him right for his lack of enterprise.
Let me tell you that, while twenty years ago any sort of a bird skin was acceptable to a museum, now such specimens must be first class in order to be well received. Fine skins are the rule now with curators and professional ornithologists, and poor ones the exception. Although the work itself is simple enough, it is no child's play to perform it successfully.
It is best for the beginner to learn first how to skin small birds, and make up their skins, and when he has mastered these details he is prepared to undertake the preparation of large specimens, and learn how to overcome the exceptional difficulties they present. To this end the present chapter will be devoted to setting forth the leading principles involved, which are most easily learned from small specimens.
We will first undertake the work of skinning a small bird—a robin, thrush, or blackbird, whichever you happen to have. If in skinning, skin-making, and mounting you master the robin, for example, which is the highest type of a bird, you will be well prepared for the great majority of the other members of the feathered tribe.
Shoot your specimen with as fine shot as possible, and not too much even of that, in order to avoid shooting its mandibles, feet, legs, and feathers to pieces. As soon as it is dead, plug the throat, nostrils, and all wounds that bleed, with bits of cotton, to keep the blood and other liquids from oozing out upon the feathers, and putting you to more serious trouble. Carry the specimen home in any careful way you choose, so as to avoid rumpling or soiling the plumage. By all means let your first practice be upon clean birds.
A bird should lie an hour or two after being shot, in order that the blood may coagulate. Warm specimens bleed very badly in skinning.
We are now in our workroom, with the gun standing quietly in its corner, and a robin lying on the table before us. Look at it. Study its form and structure, and remember what you see. Notice how smoothly the feathers lie—how nicely they fall over the angle of the wing at the shoulder—how completely the thigh is buried in the feathers of the breast and side, and also where the legs emerge from the body feathers. Notice how
short the neck is, how the eye does not bulge out of the head, and note the fact that the breast and belly look full, round, and comfortable, instead of presenting that ghastly, drawn-up, eviscerated appearance so often seen in the amateur's mounted specimens. Note the color of the eye, the bill, the cere, tarsi, claws, and all other parts that will require painting when the specimen is mounted, if it ever should be. Now take the following Measurements.—It would be high treason for me to recommend any other system of bird measurement than that directed by Dr. Coues in his incomparable "Key to North American Birds," and it is hereby set forth:
1. Length.—Distance between the tip of the bill and the end of the longest feather of the tail.
2. Extent of wings.—This means the distance between the tips of the outstretched wings as the bird lies flat upon its back.
3. Length of wing.—Distance from the angle formed at the (carpus) bend of the wing to the end of the largest primary. In birds with a convex wing, do not lay the tape-line over the curve, but under the wing, in a straight line.
4. Length of the tail.—Distance from the roots of the tail feathers to the end of the longest one. Feel for the "pope's nose;" in either a fresh or dried specimen there is more or less of a palpable lump into which the tail feathers stick. Guess as near as you can to the middle of this lump; place the end of the ruler opposite the point, and see where the tip of the longest tail feather comes.
5. Length of bill.—Dr. Coues takes "the chord of the culmen," which is determined thus: "Place one foot of the dividers on the culmen just where the feathers end; no matter whether the culmen runs up on the forehead, or the frontal feathers run out on the culmen, and no matter whether the culmen is straight or curved. With me the length of the bill is the shortest distance from the point indicated to the tip of the upper mandible."
6. Length of tarsus.—Distance between the joint of the tarsus with the leg above, and that with the first phalanx of the middle toe below. Measure it always with the dividers, and in front of the leg.
7. Length of toes.—Distance in a straight line along the upper surface of a toe is from the point last indicated to the root of the claw on top. Length of toe is to be taken without the claw, unless otherwise specified.
8. Length of the claws.—Distance in a straight line from the point last indicated to the tip of the claw.
9. Length of head.—Set one foot of the dividers over the base of the culmen, and allow the other to slip just snugly down over the arch of the occiput.
For skinning a small bird, the only instrument imperatively necessary is a good-sized scalpel or a sharp penknife. You can use a pair of small scissors now and then, if you have them, to very good advantage, in severing legs and wings and clipping off tendons. Have ready a dish of corn meal to absorb any blood that is likely to soil the feathers. Now push a wad of cotton up the vent, and we are ready to remove the skin.
No, there is one thing more. The wings lie close to the body, and will be continually in our way unless we break them so that they will fall back and leave us a clear field. It is the humerus that must be snapped in two, as close to the body as possible. Those of small birds are easily broken with the thumb and finger, but in a large bird they must be treated to a sharp blow with a heavy stick, or a hammer.
Lay the bird upon its back, with its head toward your left hand; part the feathers in a straight line, and divide the skin from the centre of the breast straight down to the end of the breastbone, and on until the vent is reached. Cut through the skin only, for if you go too deep and cut through the wall of the abdomen you will have the intestines and various other troubles upon your hands.
Skin down each side of the bird until you come to the knee-joint, which lies close to the body, and well within the skin. Sever each leg completely at the knee, leaving the thigh attached to the body, turn the skin of the leg wrong side out over the fleshy part, quite down to the joint, and then cut away every particle of flesh from the bone of the leg.
Sever the tail from the body close to the ends of the tail feathers, without cutting through the skin. Now take the body between the thumb and forefinger of the left hand, holding it at the hips, and with the other hand separate the skin from the back. From this point we proceed to turn the skin wrong side out over the shoulders and head. When the wings are reached, cut them off where they are broken, and turn the skin down over the neck. Avoid cutting through the crop. If blood flows at any time, absorb it all with the corn meal or plaster Paris.
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