Field Care of Fishes 13 



Salting the Skin. Thorough salting of the skin is important. 

 Turn the skin inside out and use salt liberally around the base 

 of the fins and tail. Rub salt well into all parts of the head, and 

 then fill the head with another handful. Next, pile about an 

 inch of salt over the entire fish. Turn back the sides to their 

 original position and roll the skin into a ball, meanwhile adding 

 still more salt. Then place another inch of salt on the bottom of 

 a suitable container. A bait pail or a paint bucket is excellent. 

 If a wooden box is used, place a couple of layers of wax paper 

 around the inside. Place the rolled skin in the container and fill 

 all the space around the fish with salt. Put the cover or lid of the 

 container on solidly— results are best from air-tight receptacles. 

 The box or can should not be placed in the sun or next to a 

 heated radiator. 



I have used this method on several specimens during a 

 lengthv collecting trip in Alaska. Upon returning to the labora- 

 tory, I placed the cans containing the fish skins in the deep 

 freeze, just as they were. Two years later I removed the speci- 

 mens, and to my surprise they were excellent to work with, and 

 the color retention of the skin amazed me. An important fish, a 

 mahseer, was collected by me high in the mountains of Nepal— 

 a country between Tibet and India. This salted fish skin, in an 

 air-tight jar, traveled with me for weeks in the Himalayan 

 Mountains and then through the heat of the Indian plains, and 

 it arrived many months later at Yale University in excellent con- 

 dition! This method should be popular with anglers because the 

 fish skin is safe to transport and takes up little room in a car, 

 or it can be mailed home easilv without worry! 



