4i6 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



had access I have found that, though the laws were good 

 enough, they were rendered useless through lack of men to 

 enforce them. 



In Canada no game laws can ever be of much avail as long 

 as the Indian is allowed the privileges which he at present enjoys. 



But the principal business of this chapter is to instruct the 

 hunter in the best methods of preserving his trophies when 

 fairly won, until such time as he can hand them over to one 

 of our excellent practical taxidermists at home. In nme cases 

 out of ten, the head is all that a man cares to preserve, and 

 those who are wise will not cumber their houses with too many 

 even of these with the 7nasks on. In spite of infinite pains, 

 moth and dust will corrupt the most carefully guarded collec- 

 tions. However, if you want to mount the head with skin and 

 all complete, let your first care be to sketch or photograph it in 

 profile before the skinner's knife has touched it, in order that 

 the man who sets up the trophy may have some idea of what it 

 looked like in life. 



If the hunter cannot sketch decently, a kodak is a good 

 substitute for the pencil, or the proportions and various bumps 

 and inequalities in the outline may be accurately preserved by 

 laying the head upon a sheet of paper and tracing its outline with 

 a simple instrument, consisting of two pieces of metal four or 

 five inches in length, set at right angles to one another, with a 

 socket at the angle into which a lead pencil is fixed, so that the 

 point projects just far enough to make a mark upon the paper, 

 when, with the lower side upon the paper and the upright side 

 against the head, an outline of the profile is taken. Outlines 

 or photographs should be made as soon after death as possible, 

 before the muscles have time to sink and lose their natural pro- 

 minence. 



In skinning a horned head proceed as follows : — 



Slit the back of the neck up the middle to a point between 

 the horns, then make a crosscut from the base of one antler to 

 the base of the other. This will give you a cut shaped thus, T. 

 Now separate the skin from the skull round the base of each 



