Book Description

Excerpt from Instructions for Collectors: No; 2 Birds and Their Eggs Fine bleached cotton-wool is necessary for the filling in of the eye-sockets of the specimens. Nothing conduces more to the neat appearance of a properly prepared skin of a bird than the aspect of the head and eyes. For small birds there is nothing better than cotton-wool for the filling out of the skin. Ordinary cotton-wadding is also useful for wrapping round the skins after they have been made up. It helps to keep the skin in good shape and to dry it quickly. Tow is useful for filling out skins of larger birds; and, if possible, the neck should always be made of tow, instead of wool, for, if the specimen should ever be required for mounting, the wires of the taxidermist can easily be worked through a neck made of tow, whereas wool is impervious. Fine white sawdust should always be handy for sprinkling on the body of the bird while it is being skinned, and some plaster of Paris is an almost indispensable adjunct in skinning wading and swimming birds, which are often covered with fat. As, however, these materials cannot always be procured in the tropics, dry sand may be used as a substitute, and, in an emergency, tobacco-ash, or even dry earth, can be made available. Care must be taken to prevent the edges of the feathers becoming soiled by contact with the body of the bird as it is being taken out. Little wisps of cotton-wool should be at hand, to interpose along the base of the feathers while the skin is removed, as they serve to keep the feathers back and to prevent them touching the flesh of the body. With a little practice the collector will find that he knows instinctively what feathers will be affected by his action as he removes the skin from the different parts of the body, and his fingers will naturally intervene between the feathers and the flesh. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.