Page:The American Boy's Handy Book edition 1.djvu/268

point, but be careful to leave a large enough piece of it to support the tail feathers.

Take the part of the body which is now denuded of the skin in the left hand and peel the skin upward to the wings; during this operation your knife or small scissors may be used to cut any of the tendons which are met with. Separate the wings from the body at the shoulder-joint. Next turn your attention to the head and neck. Push the skin back toward the head, after the manner of removing a kid glove from the finger, until the back part of the skull is laid bare; then with your knife detach the vertebræ (neck bone) from the head. This will sever all connection between the body and the skin. The dismembered, denuded carcass may be thrown aside and your attention turned to skinning the head, which member in an owl is so large in proportion to the neck that care must be used in drawing the skin of the neck over it, lest you stretch. the skin. A great deal depends upon the delicacy of your touch, especially when you reach the eyes. Work slowly; cut the ears close to the skull; do not cut either the eyelid or the eyeball, but separate them carefully; then remove the eyes, which can be done by breaking the slender bones which separate the orbits (eye-holes) in the skull from the top of the mouth. Cut away all flesh from the neck; at the same time remove a small portion of the base of the skull. Through the opening thus made extract the brains with a small spoon or some similar instrument, after which draw the tongue through the same cavity. After removing all fleshy particles from the head and neck, and scraping out the eye-holes, paint them with arsenical soap and stuff them tightly with cotton. Be careful not to detach the skin from the bill, as the skull must be left in place. Coat the interior of the skull with arsenical soap and fill it with tow.

The wings and legs still remain intact. Push back the wings