To skin the bird, cut from anus to point of breast-bone through the skin only. Work skin away on each side to legs; push each leg up, cut off at knee-joint, skin down to next joint, remove all flesh from bone, and pull leg back into place; loosen skin at base of tail, cut through vertebral column at last joint, being careful not to cut through bases of tail-feathers; work skin forward, turning it inside out, loosening it carefully all around, without stretching, to wings; cut off wings at elbow-joint, skin down to next joint and remove flesh from wing-bones; push skin forward to base of skull, and if skull is not too large (it is in ducks, woodpeckers, and some other birds), on over it to ears and eyes; be very careful in loosening the membrane of ears and in cutting nictitating membrane of eyes; do not cut into eyeball; remove eyeballs without breaking; cut off base of skull, and scoop out brain; remove flesh from skull, and "poison" the skin by dusting it thoroughly with the powdered arsenic and alum mixture. Turn skin right side out, and clean off fresh blood-stains by soaking them up with corn-meal; wash off dried blood with water, and dry with corn-meal. Corn-meal may be used during skinning to soak up blood and grease. There remains to stuff the skin. Fill orbits of eyes with cotton (this can be advantageously done before skin is reversed); thrust into neck a moderately compact, elastic, smooth roll of cotton about thickness of the natural neck; make a loose oval ball of size and general shape of bird's body and put into body-cavity with anterior end under the posterior end of neck-roll; pull two edges of abdominal incision together over the cotton, fasten, if necessary, with a single stitch of thread, smooth feathers, fold wings in natural position, wrap skin, not tightly, in thin sheet of cotton (opportunity for delicate handling here) and put away in a drawer or box to dry. Before putting away tie label to leg, giving date and locality of capture, sex and measurements of bird, and name of collector. Before bird is put into permanent collection it should be labelled with its common and scientific name. The mounting of birds in lifelike shape and attitude is hard to do successfully; and a collection of mounted birds demands much more room and more expensive cabinets than one of skins. For instructions for the mounting of birds see Davie's "Methods in the Art of Taxidermy," pp. 39-57; or Hornaday's "Taxidermy and Zoological Collecting." For a more detailed account of making bird-skins, see also these books, or Ridgway's "Directions for Collecting Birds." In collecting birds' nests cut off the branch or branches on which the nest is placed a few inches above and below the nest, leaving it in its natural position. Ground-nests should have the section of the sod on which they are placed taken up and preserved with them. If the inner lining of the nest consists of feathers or fur put in a "moth-ball" (naphthaline).