26 TAXIDEKMY AND ZOOLOGICAL COLLECTING. 



SKINNING SMALL QUADEUPEDS. Lay the animal flat upon its 

 back, head to your right. Hold your knife with the edge up, 

 and push the point through the skin of the throat, precisely in 

 the middle of the neck. Now push the point of the knife for- 

 ward under the skin, between it and the flesh, and divide the 

 skin in a straight, clean cut along the middle of the neck, 

 breast, and body, quite to the base of the tail. If the animal 

 has a large, fleshy tail, like a dog or raccoon, it must be slit 

 open along the under side (without cutting the hair) for 

 its entire length, except an inch or two at the base. If the tail 

 is small, slender, or bony, like that of a squirrel or a rat, it can 

 usually be slipped out of the skin by pulling the bony part 

 between two sticks held close together against the skin of the 

 tail. 



The sole of each foot must be slit open, lengthwise, from the 

 base of the middle toe straight back to the heel, and in case the 

 foot is large and fleshy, like that of a dog, the cut must be con- 

 tinued on up the leg, perhaps one-third of the way to the knee, 

 to enable the skin of the leg to be turned wrong side out over 

 the foot. 



Having made all the opening cuts, begin at the abdomen, 

 catch one edge of the skin between thumb and finger, and with 

 the knife cut it neatly and cleanly from the body, leaving as lit- 

 tle flesh as possible adhering to the skin. In using the knife do 

 not go at it in a daintily finical way, as if you were picking bird- 

 shot out of the leg of a dear friend ; for, if you do, it will take 

 you forever to skin your first specimen, and there will be no 

 time left for another. Learn to work briskly but carefully, and 

 by and by you will be able to take off a skin with a degree of 

 neatness and rapidity that will astonish the natives. It is not a 

 dissecting touch that is called for in taking off a skin, but a 

 firm, sweeping, shaving stroke instead, applied to the inside of 

 the skin, and not to the carcass. This applies to all skinning 

 operations on all vertebrates except birds. 



After starting at the abdomen, we come very soon to where 

 the foreleg joins the body at the shoulder, and the hind leg at 

 the hip. Disjoint each there, and cut through the muscles 

 until each leg is severed from the body. Skin each leg by 

 turning the skin wrong side out over the foot quite down to the 



