CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

 CLEANING AND MOUNTING SMALL SKELETONS. 



THE skeletons of small vertebrates should never be macerated 

 previous to mounting 1 , for the reason that their complete re- 

 articulation would be a practical impossibility. The bones 

 must be left united at the joints by their natural ligaments, 

 which when dry become quite hard, and with the aid of either 

 one or two small brass standards will hold the entire skeleton 

 erect and in proper shape. Skeletons mounted thus, with the 

 parts attached to each other by their own dried ligaments in- 

 stead of wires, are called ligameutous, or ligamehtary, skeletons. 

 All mammals smaller than a large fox, all birds smaller than a 

 small ostrich, all turtles, lizards, iguanas, serpents, crocodil- 

 ians, and all fishes are mounted in this way. Fortunately it is 

 possible to clean to perfect whiteness the skeletons of almost 

 all these subjects without putting them through the maceration 

 process, which resolves everything into its component parts. 



DRYING BEFORE MOUNTING. In order to have a skeleton so 

 that it will scrape to the best advantage and become as white as 

 possible, every ligamentary skeleton must be dried before it is 

 finally cleaned and mounted. In a perfectly fresh skeleton the 

 cpiphyses and ligaments are so soft the operator would find it 

 hard to keep from destroying them with his keen-edged steel 

 scrapers, and the smaller bones and cartilaginous members 

 would also be in great danger of mutilation in the same way. 

 When a skeleton dries, all these soft portions harden, and when 

 afterward the skeleton is soaked in clear water for two or three 

 days, or longer as may be necessary, the flesh quickly softens 

 so that you can scrape it all away without encroaching on the 

 frame-work, and the ligaments at the joints arc just soft enough 

 that a portion of it may be scraped or trimmed away, and yet 

 leave sufficient to hold each joint together. 



