roll of paper towels will make it easy to clean out
the body cavity after the innards are gone. If you
wash your waterfowl out after cleaning be sure to
dry them well.

It’s a good idea to rough pluck your waterfowl,
especially the divers, as soon as you get them. It
makes the final plucking much easier. Hunters dis-
agree on whether birds should be cleaned with
paraffin wax or not. Some claim that paraffin is a
first-rate way to get rid of down and pin feathers.
Here’s how to use this method. Rough pluck the
birds first. Melt three cakes of paraffin wax in six
quarts of hot water and dunk the birds, one at a
time, into the mixture so they are covered with a
thin coating of wax. When the wax cools and hardens
it can be scraped off taking the pin feathers and down
with it.

Most hunters singe their birds to get rid of the
long hairs that remain after plucking. The trick with
singeing is to avoid using newspapers because when
the ink burns it taints the meat. Use a small burner,
a roll of brown Kraft paper or a small propane blow-
torch.

Some areas produce waterfowl with tainted fat on
their bodies. If experience shows that birds from a
particular district make a dreadful smell when they
are cooking here is a hint for preventing the smell
yet saving the bird. Skin it and make sure you take
off the fat with the skin. A wrapping of aluminum
foil will serve as a new skin during cooking. Another
trick is to partially boil the bird, throw out the
greasy water and then roast the bird until it is done.

The question of aging the bird is a controversial

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