EQUIPMENT, ARMS, AND SPECIMENS 755 



ventral cut and severing the leg and then, by making a short 

 cut on the back at the fetlocks, the leg bones may be severed 

 at that point and the skin of the leg stripped back to the 

 knee or hock, as the case may be, and the bone removed 

 from below. This method can only be employed where salt 

 is to be used or where, as in carnivores, the skin can be com- 

 pletely reversed and dried wrong side out. The method can- 

 not be used on such thick-skinned mammals as rhinoceros, 

 hippopotamus, giraffe, and elephant, in which the skin is 

 too thick to be manipulated. Buffalo and eland are the 

 limit of its possibilities. 



The preservation of the entire skin of the elephant pre- 

 sents a special case; for, owing to its large size, it cannot be 

 handled in one piece as is possible in rhinoceros and giraffe. 

 Cow elephants and small bulls may be conveniently ma- 

 nipulated by cutting the skins into three sections. The head 

 is first cut off close behind the skull where the cut is hidden 

 by the immense ears, and further cuts are made on the ears 

 and trunk as already described. The body skin is then cut 

 into halves by a cut extending along the median line of the 

 whole length of the back from the neck to the tail and con- 

 tinued on the ventral surface, following the median line of 

 the belly to the throat. A cut along the inner side of each 

 leg is then made from the hoof to the median ventral cut. 

 An additional cut on the under side of the tail is made from 

 the base to the tip. In very large bull elephants it is found 

 necessary to again divide each half by a transverse cut ex- 

 tending midway between the two legs from the dorsal cut 

 to the ventral. This results in sectioning the elephant's 

 skin into five pieces. 



In the preservation of skulls for scientific purposes great 



