Bird skins:
Ornithologists flock
to study specimens
By E.G. WHITE-SWIFT
Of the Emerald
The best method of identifying
birds is to hold the birds in the
hand.
Since it is illegal to capture birds
without a special permit from the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service,
dead birds preserved in a natural
state are used by most or
nithologists for identifying unusual
plumages, weights and sub
species classifications of birds.
The University has a large col
lection of preserved bird speci
mens, or study skins, housed in
special drawers at the Museum of
Natural History. The airtight and
moisture resistant drawers are
necessary to prevent insects from
feeding on the stored specimens.
The University’s collection in
cludes 3,000 study skins, 150
mounted specimens, 1,000 egg
TANIA
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Paire 20
sets and 250 nests. The only
larger collection in Oregon is at
the Oregon State University
Museum of Natural History, which
has about 14,000 skins. There are
other collections throughout the
state, including small collections
at Portland State University,
Southern Oregon State College,
Willamette University and the Til
lamook Pioneer Museum.
Nationwide, there are collec
tions at 283 institutions and pri
vate museums totaling more than
four million study skins. The
largest collection is at the Ameri
can Museum of Natural History in
New York City where 900,000
study skins are available to or
nithologists.
Although the University’s
museum was not created until
1936, the zoological collection
dates back to 1910. The collection
was stored on the top floor of
Deady Hall for many years.
“In former days, the collection
was a novelty to students and fa
culty members,” an Emerald wri
ter said in the May 15, 1926 edi
tion, “and there weren’t as many
campus amusements as there are
now, so enthusiastic groups fre
quently assembled at Deady to
discuss the exhibit and listen to
lectures on birds.”
Most of the study skins that
were available in 1926 are still in
good condition today. The speci
mens are still used for lectures
and as instructional aides, says
museum director L.R. Kittleman.
“Specimens are loaned to edu
cational institutions, museums
and other departments at the Uni
versity,” he says. “A large collec
tion has been loaned to the biol
ogy department for use in the
department’s ornithology and
natural history classes. Individu
als not attached to the museum or
school are allowed to examine the
specimens here.”
The museum has cataloged
the collection to make it easier for
ornithologists to find individual
specimens. Each specimen has a
unique number and a reference
card, listing the date of collection,
collector, locality of collection and
ecological notations about the
particular specimen.
How does a dead bird become a
study specimen? It’s a fairly sim
ple process, although gruesome.
“There are three acceptable
methods for preserving birds,”
says University biology professor
Herb Wisner. “The birds can be
literally skinned and dried, there is
a freeze drying process and a
chemical injection process.”
In the skinning process, an inci
sion is made from the bird’s neck
to its rump. The skin is separated
from the internal body mass and
CHEC meetings slated
The Community Healtli and Education Center (CHEC) will elect a
new board of directors at a public meeting scheduled for 7:30 Tuesday
night at Whiteaker Community School, 21 N. Grand St.
The various directions CHEC may pursue in the future to open a
primary health care center will also be discussed. CHEC is aimed at
providing personalized, affordable health services with a preventive
and wholistic orientation.
In addition, CHEC will begin offering a class on Women and Sexu
ality Monday at 7 p.m. at Patterson Community School, 1510 Taylor St.
Karen Baline will teach the course and child care will be provided. A $1
donation is asked but the course is free to those who are unable to pay.
For more information about the course or Tuesday’s meeting, call
485-8445 or 344-3153.
Photo by Perry Gaskill
Stuffed bird specimens such as this passenger pigeon are treasures to ornithologists, who otherwise might
have a hard time examining the finer points. Dead birds are preserved in natural states and kept in the
University’s natural history museum because it is illegal to capture birds without a special permit.
pinned up on cardboard to dry. A
small incision is made in the back
of the head, and the brain is care
fully removed.
“After the skin is dried, it is
treated with either arsenic or a
chemical like borax to make it less
inviting for vermin,” he says. “The
skin is filled with cotton or a similar
substance to recreate its original
shape and appearance. The inci
sions are sewed, and the bird is
labeled and tagged before place
ment in a zoological collection.”
Another process is freeze dry
ing. The freeze dryer was de
veloped by a University research
assistant in the chemistry depart
ment and a local resident. Al
though the freeze dryer is cur
rently “on the blink,” it is easier
than skinning.
“A cold temperature vacuum is
created in the freeze dryer,” says
Wisner. “The bird dries as all its
moisture is withdrawn, but retains
its original appearance.”
The other process available to
collectors is injecting the speci
men with formalin or another
chemical preservative. The chem
icals poison the flesh, preventing
insect predation.
Not everyone can preserve
dead birds. For openers, it is il
legal to shoot birds, although
naturally-killed birds can be sal
vaged by individuals who have ob
tained special salvage permits
from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service (USFWS).
To receive a permit, prospec
tive skinners must petition and
convince the regional USFWS of
fice that the skins will be collected
from road-kills or naturally dead
birds. In addition, the prospective
skinner must have outlined a
specific purpose for preparing his
skins. The salvage permit
specifies that all the study skins
must be turned over to a university
or natural history museum.
Wisner has had a salvage per
mit for 20 years. The dead birds
are brought to him by area resi
dents who find them along the
road or washed up along
lakeshores after a storm. Since
Jan. 5,15 birds have been turned
in, including screech owls, a
pied-billed grebe, a whistling
swan and a great egret.
Although it is illegal to even
possess a bird now, most of the
museum’s collection was inten
tionally shot. The two or
nithologists that collected most of
the specimens legally shot the
birds between 1915 and 1940,
when it was still an acceptable
method of obtaining birds for in
structional collections.
Although he was only at the
University for three years,
1914-1917, Alfred Cooper Shel
ton provided about one-third of the
collection. In addition to birds,
Shelton also collected mammals
for the University zoological col
lection. He also wrote and pub
lished one of the first books on the
birds of Lane County, which was
published in January 1917, as A
Distributional List of the Land
Birds of West Central Oregon.
In the summer of 1914 Shelton
displayed 700 specimens from his
collection at the Oregon State
Fair. Shelton also set up grade
school courses in the Portland
school system to study Oregon’s
birds.
The other major collector for the
museum was a Scio physician,
A.G. Prill. He was one of the first
ornithologists to begin collecting
Oregon specimens, starting in the
early 1880s. In 1919, he gave the
University 35 sets of birds’ eggs to
accompany an earlier gift of study
skins.
A set or “clutch" of eggs is the
number laid by a bird during the
year and varies with the species of
bird. A quail will have 12 to 16 in a
set, sparrows 4, chickadees 4 to 8,
while some birds lay only 2 eggs a
year.
The Prill collection is particu
larly valuable because the eggs
were sent in their native nests.
The museum possesses one other
collection of eggs known as the
Schmidt collection, which con
tains 75 sets of eggs but does not
include the nests.
At the time Prill and Shelton
were collecting, shooting a bird
was recognized as the proof of the
bird’s status in a given area.
Photography and personal obser
vation by more than one qualified
observer, acceptable methods
today, were considered incom
plete.
Although sometimes destruc
tive on bird populations in one loc
ality, it did provide undeniable
proof. One reason that good proof
was needed is given in the follow
ing “ornithological folktale” about
an early Eugene area or
nithologist.
Earlier in this century, Eugene
was a dry or non-alcohol city,
while Springfield was a wet city.
Many residents would take the af
ternoon trolley to Springfield for
refreshments. One ornithologist
had a habit of taking the trolley on
occasion, keeping notes on birds
observed along the route. The ob
servations noted on the way to
Springfield were considered quite
accurate, but the observations on
return tended to be rather exotic
and required collecting speci
mens for proof.
The museum’s ornithological
collection has not changed sub
stantially since the Deady Hall
days. The same desk that Shelton
used to write out his field notes
stores his notes today. The same
drawers that Prill’s specimens
were sorted in stores the speci
mens today. Although interest and
research use of the study skins
remains high, the museum also
has been unable to obtain from
University officials.
“We had begun planning a bird
exhibit last fall,” says Kittleman,
“to use one of the three unused
cases in the exhibit room. We re
quested $2,000 for the necessary
carpentry work from the Dean of
the College of Liberal Arts, but it
was denied.”
Kittleman would like to find (and
have the funding to hire) a person
qualified to act as curator of the
large study skin collection and the
large vertabrate paleontology
(fossils) collection. Until the vac
ant curator position is filled, the full
potential of the skins and fossils
will not be reached.
And as the expression goes, a
bird in the hand is worth two dozen
in the bush.