TREATMENT OF THE SKINS OF SMALL MAMMALS. 33 



becoming 1 so hard and brittle and inelastic ; and (3), it can be 

 softened and mounted much more easily and successfully than 

 skins prepared by the first method. For skins which are to be 

 mounted, the advantages of this method are very obvious. 



TJie Simplest Method. If you have neither arsenic nor arsenical 

 soap, and yet wish to save a skin so it can be sent to a taxider- 

 mist in good condition, prepare it with fine salt alone. Use the 

 salt liberally, and if the weather is warm, leave the skin turned 

 wrong side out and roll it up in a quantity of it. If you use it 

 sparingly, the skin will absorb it all in a day or two, literally 

 " cry for more," and failing to get it will sweat and spoil. It is 

 simply a question of enough salt. 



Even when collecting in the field, I nearly always cure small 

 skins with salt only, so that they will stay quite soft and fresh 

 until they get to the laboratory, and then go into the bath with- 

 out ever having been dried. 



Rats. Skins preserved with salt only must be carefully 

 guarded from the attacks of mice, rats, cats, dogs, and other 

 vermin that go about seeking what they may devour. 



MAKING UP A DHY SKIN. The Legs. Having applied the pre- 

 servatives, if you propose to make up your specimen as a dry 

 skin, wrap a little tow, oakum, cotton, or cotton cloth around 

 the bones of each leg, to partly replace the flesh, and keep the 

 skin away from the bone, so that both can dry quickly. If you 

 have no other material, paper will do. In the East Indies, where 

 transportation was difficult, I used to carry with me bundles of 

 coarse brown paper such as the grocers use, and used it for 

 wrapping the leg bones of monkeys, foxes, and the like. But 

 for the small rodents, one must have either tow, oakum, cotton, 

 or cloth, the preference Jbeing in the order named. On no ac- 

 count should the skin be left to dry down upon the bone. The 

 proper filling out of the legs is desirable in order that they may 

 have a neat, shapely, and natural appearance, so that the hair 

 will lie naturally, and can be studied to advantage. If this part 

 of the process is neglected, the skin of the leg shrivels up, dries 

 down upon the bone, and looks like a mummy. In the tropics 

 the moisture in a leg bone is sufficient to cause the decay of the 

 skin which surrounds it unless they av separated by some kind 

 of wrapping. To avoid this, some tropical collectors allow their 

 3 



