"dodge;" and I can fearlessly assert that it will not stand
the test of work and expediency. It is, in fact, impossible to
dispense with wire, if taxidermy is to be followed as a profession.
As to putting cotton wool between the flesh and the skin, practice
will enable one to do without this. To me it would be a great
nuisance, unless in the case of much grease, of persistent bleeding,
or clots of extravasated blood occurring. All the rest of the
instructions on skinning are sound and practical, except where he
advises the knee to be used instead of a table. A little reflection,
or, better still, a trial, will convince anyone that nothing can
compare in practice with a table or bench for comfortable working.

I do not hold, either, with the total removal of the skull. For
instance, how are you to exhibit the superciliary ridge which gives so
distinctive a character to the very bird Waterton selects--the
hawk--if you cut it away? I have tried both plans, and I
unhesitatingly say that you cannot give character to the heads of the
larger birds if you remove the skull (unless, of course, you choose to
model it up in clay, etc, as in the heads of mammals), though I agree
that you must free the skin from all its surroundings. I have at the
present moment several birds (set up by a man in the West of England),
in which the skulls have been removed; the skin has shrunk in at the
back of the head and at the mandibles; and in one instance--an
osprey--the bird has entirely lost its nobility and eagle-like
appearance by the removal of the ridge above the eye.

I cannot urge the advisability of making the body larger to allow for
shrinking, inasmuch as in the case of certain birds--notably
gulls--which should present an even' surface on the breast, the
opposite effect will be produced if the false body is unduly large, as
then, in place of the evenness so desirable, a division will appear in
the centre of the body, which entirely mars the beautiful symmetry of
the sea-bird's breast. No perceptible shrinkage can, however, occur if
the body is properly made and packed; and here is shown the vast
superiority of the made body of well-wrapped tow over that made of
loose cotton inserted in the skin, bit by bit.

The eyes I prefer to insert in the larger birds after the specimen is
dry, as then any little fault in the shape of the head is easily
rectified through the orbit, the eyelid, of course, being previously
relaxed (with cotton wo