How to prepare Skins, and go Fishing.
The process was very simple, for he took the thrush and the lories, inserted a sharp-pointed penknife just through the skin, and then with clever fingers turned the delicate skin back, taking care not to injure the feathers either by the moisture of the bird’s flesh or by handling and roughening the plumage, the result being that he skilfully turned the skin inside out after cutting through the legs and wings, cleaning the bones of flesh, and leaving in the skull, after stripping the bird right to the beak.
It was surprising how beautifully clean everything came away, so that when the fleshy side of the skin had been brushed over with moistened arsenical soap, the wing-bones tied together, the hollow of the skull and orbits of the eyes filled up with cotton-wool, and a ball of the same placed for the body, the skin being turned back over all and slightly shaken, a stranger would hardly have known that the flesh of the bird had been removed.
There was no odour except the aromatic scent of the preserving soap; and when a little sugar-paper had been twisted up into which to thrust the bird’s head and shoulders to keep the neck short, and the bird had lain in the sun for a few hours, it became quite stiff and dry, exactly like the skins with which I was familiar.
Uncle Dick insisted upon my doing the thrush and one of the lories, while he did the pigeons, whose skins were so tender, and so covered with oily fat, that they required a great deal of care to keep the feathers unsullied.
I set to work then, skinning my birds pretty readily from old practice, and after a little bungling I managed to make of them respectable-looking skins.
“You’ll soon improve, Nat,” said my uncle, as we laid our specimens all together in the sun, the black nodding his approval at all we did; but the skins had not been lying there long, and our hands washed previous to putting on the kettle for tea, before our new friend jumped up in a great state of excitement, pointing to a reddish-brown streak that seemed to run from the wood nearly to where our specimens lay.
“Ants!” exclaimed my uncle, darting to the skins, and shaking off a few of the enemies that had come to the attack; and it was not until we had contrived to make a little channel all round one of our boxes upon which the skins were laid, and connected it with the little spring of water, so that our treasure was surrounded by a tiny moat, that we could keep the insects away.
Our black friend, who was evidently a great chief among his people, made no scruple about stopping to have some tea with us, watching the boiling of the kettle and our preparations with the greatest of curiosity, but always in a calm, composed way.
“It is rather a nuisance always having him here, Nat,” said my uncle; “but we should be bothered with a good many more if he were to go, and really he does not seem a bad sort of fellow.”