COLLECTING AND PRESERVING THE SKINS. 45 



are not very careful your knife will make an ugly gash at the 

 corner of the eye before you know it. A finger held in between 

 the lids against the eyeball will be a safe guide. Of course, you 

 will cut the lips away at the gum, and split them open after- 

 ward from the inside to remove the flesh. And, of course, the 

 proboscis of the baboon and the long-nosed monkey of Borneo 

 must be skinned out quite to the tip while the specimen is fresh, 

 or it will dry up horribly. 



The Ear. The ear of a quadrumane, especially that of a chim- 

 panzee, because of its great size, is a very miserable part to pre- 

 serve, unless you have a salt-and-alum bath at hand. If the car- 

 tilage is entirely skinned out itself a difficult thing to do it 

 will afterward be almost a practical impossibility to give the 

 ear its proper shape. Therefore the cartilage must remain. 

 The skin can be loosened from the cartilage at the back of the 

 ear, however, which is a great gain. Do this, and insert a good 

 quantity of powdered alum. Then paint the whole ear over on 

 both sides with arsenical soap, and put on all the powdered 

 alum that will stick unless the skin is to go in the bath. In 

 that case treat each ear to a little strong alum water for an hour 



* 

 or so. 



