BACKWOODS TAXIDERMY. 657 



clean them well, and again immerse twelve more hours, or longer, if necessary. 

 The skins may then be taken out, well washed and dried. They can be beaten 

 soft, if desired. 



3. Take equal parts salt, alum, and Glauber salts, and half a pint saltpetre ; pul- 

 verize and mix. Handle the skins and rub the mixture in well three or four times 

 a day, the oftener the better. If there is not sufficient moisture in the skin to 

 dissolve the salts put a little water into the latter. We are assured that no moth 

 will ever attack furs, the pelts of which have been thus prepared. 



4. Mix the proportion of six pounds of alum, and three of salt. Dissolve both 

 in about a gallon of warm water. Use when cool. Place skins not too tightly 

 packed, in a barrel or keg, and pour in mixture. Skins without injury to hair may 

 be kept any length of time in this way, and all in good order at any time to stuff. 



5. Take two parts of saltpetre and one of alum, pulverize them well together ; 

 spread the skin carefully, fur side down, before it has dried ; apply the mix- 

 tures evenly, being careful to touch every part in sufficient quantity to thoroughly 

 wet the surface after it dissolves ; double the flesh side and roll it up closely ; put 

 it in a cool place, out of the way of the frost, and let it remain three or four days 

 or more according to thickness ; then unroll, and when it gets nearly dry, with a 

 dull knife remove the fat that may adhere in spots, and a little rubbing makes it 

 pliable and fit for use. 



6. Glauber salts, two pounds ; rock salt, one pound ; alum, two pounds ; all to 

 be dissolved in boiling water ; leave skins in about ten days, take them out occa- 

 sionally for a little while during that time ; cut the edge of the skin to see if the 

 tanning has gone through ; then take them in the hand and beat them over a 

 round stick or block until they are soft. They are to be beaten with the hair 

 side in. 



Indian Tanned Skins. — The skin is stretched either on the ground or on poles, 

 and all fat or flesh removed. When well dried it is washed in soap and water 

 to cleanse the fur; the brains of any animal are then taken and mashed into a 

 paste with hot water, and this paste is thoroughly rubbed into the flesh side, and 

 the skin hung out to dry. When dry it is scraped, and exposed to the dew for one 

 night, and next morning rubbed and pulled until soft. 



Buckskins are made by rubbing off the hair with a horse-rib, while the skin is 

 fresh, or, after soaking in a weak lye ; then dressing with brains, and staining a 

 reddish color in a decoction of Wasatchie bark. Alum and salt are very good, 

 but alum is rather scarce in the chapparal, as also are doors and boards. Some 

 stretch skins on the ground. 



Care should be taken, by the way, not to use too much salt, as it causes the 

 skin afterward to absorb moisture too readily. Smoking a skin is done by first 

 dressing with brains, sewing it up into a funnel-shape, and suspending over a 

 slow fire of buffalo chips, or dry prickly pear, built in a hole in the ground. The 

 tips of the funnel being pinned down close around the hole ; a clear, calm day, is 

 selected, and the smoking requires about two hours. It gives a velvet-like finish, 

 and the skin never shrinks or gets stiff from wetting, but washes like cloth. 



To Keep Moths from i'/^/Kj.— Dissolve a small piece of corrosive sublimate 

 in alcohol, and brush on ; or the best arsenic dissolved in the same manner will 

 answer. 



To Preserve Fish for .S)>£<rzw^Kj.— Specimens, which, after being taken, should 

 be wrapped in a damp cloth or moss until opportunity offered for placing them in 

 weak spirits of whisky or alcohol, when they should be allowed to soak until the 



