184 METHODS hV THE ART OF TAXIDERMY. 



ears to the tips' and remove every particle of flesh and fat from the 

 entire skin. Be careful in cutting the flesh away from the lips of a 

 quadruped that has whiskers. If you cut too deep the whiskers will 

 come out. Be sure and pare the lips down thin. When the skin has 

 been returned right side out wash any blood stains off with warm 

 water and a sponge. Do not allow any blood or grease to dry on the 

 hair ^ for it is next to impossible to efface it after it becomes hard and dry.' 

 A French taxidermist wrote this caution in 1752, and many of his fol- 

 lowers have since spent hours of fruitless labor upon the careless work 

 of others. 



If the skin has been treated according to the direction-s her.e given 

 it will appear before you as seen in Fig. 2, Plate XLIV. 



We must now sever the head from the carcass, clean the muscles 

 from the skull, take out the eyes and tongue. Flatten a piece of wire 

 at one end, make it hook-shaped, and draw the brain out through the 

 occipital opening. In most of the common mammals it will do well 

 enough to cut a larger opening and take the brain out with a brain 

 spoon or other instrument ; but under no consideration cut the whole 

 back of the skull off to get at the brain. Now see that the skull is 

 thoroughly cleaned and poisoned. When this has been done you are 

 ready to prepare the skin as you may desire ; either to make it up 

 into a dry form or preserve it in a wet state in the salt and alum solu- 

 tion as directed on page 40. 



In this chapter I shall discuss the making up of dry skins of the 

 small mammals, but for the present we shall take from the salt and 

 alum bath our fine, large fox squirrel skin. We shall proceed to mount 

 it. Look carefully over the entire inside of the skin for shot holes or 

 cuts of any kind and neatly sew them up,- and be sure to clean off any 

 particles of flesh or fat which have, in the first cleaning, been over- 

 looked. Give the skin a heavy coating of arsenical paste (see recipe, 

 page 34) and then rub on a mixture of two-thirds powdered alum and 

 one-third arsenic. 



In our Plates XLV and XLVI are figured two methods of wiring 

 small quadrupeds. I use both systems, according to circumstances. 

 The former was recommended by ]\I. B. Stollas, the French taxi- 

 dermist, in 1801, and by Prof. Wiley in 1855. The latter is a system 

 of wiring which is also the invention of a French taxidermist who pub- 

 lished the method in 1758. The best mounted small quadrupeds I 

 ever saw were constructed upon the system of wiring illustrated in 



1. In Chapter X the manner of skinning the ears and ILps of quadrupeds will be fully described. 



2. The surgeon's needle which threads from the top is by far the best to use in sewing up mammal skins. 



