CHAPTER XVI. 

 MOUNTING LAEGE MAMMALS. ORDINARY METHODS. 



SECTION 1. LONG-HAIRED MAMMALS OF MEDIUM SIZE. Exam- 

 j)les : Wolves, certain dogs, large apes, baboons and mon- 

 keys ; the smaller bears, hair seals, all long-haired quadrupeds 

 from the size of the fox to the Newfoundland dog ; also, all old 

 dry skins of mammals between the two sizes mentioned. 



WHILE it will be advised in Section III. of this subject to 

 mount short-haired skins of the above sizes upon clay-covered 

 manikins, it is very often an impossibility to pursue this course 

 with a dry skin, no matter what its pelage may be like. Dry 

 skins more than one year old are usually so shrunken, hard, and 

 inelastic, that in circumference they are one or two sizes smaller 

 than life, and it is very often impossible to stretch them suffi- 

 ciently to make them fit over a manikin of the rig-lit size. The 

 only way in which enough power can be brought to bear upon 

 them to force them to stretch to their propyr size in neck and 

 body, is to fill them with straw, and ram it so hard that the 

 skin is forced to stretch. Even if you fill a shrunken body so 

 full that it will stretch no more, if you keep it thoroughly moist, 

 or even wet, in wet cloths, and return to the charge next day 

 with more straw and muscle, you will find that the skin yields 

 a good deal more, and perhaps reaches the right size without 

 further protest. Very often this is the only treatment that will 

 save an old, dry skin from becoming a total loss. In all such 

 cases/'/ ""f the worxf xhrunlrn parts first, to make sure of con- 

 quering them, and leave the less difficult portions to the last. 



The chief differences between the method described in the 

 previous chapter for mounting small mammals, and that for the 

 subjects included in this section are simply these : (1.) The 

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