TAXIDERMY. 27 



shoulders. When we have arrived thus far, we 

 cut the arm at the shoulder joint, then disengage or 

 separate it from the body, put it again into the 

 skin, and turn the animal to perform the same with 

 the other side. We continue to unskin the neck, 

 pass the head from within the skin, always with the 

 help of a scalpel. We unskin the head as far as the 

 end of the nose, taking care to cut the ears as near 

 as possible to the skull ; we must also be particularly 

 careful not to injure the eyelids, and not to cut the 

 lips too close. * When this is all done, we separate 

 die head from the trunk, taking away the muscles 

 in such a manner that all the bones which compose 

 it may be naked or clean. We enlarge the occipi- 

 tal hole by means of a sharp instrument, and scoop 



* Suppose the slit in a common slide purse to represent the 

 opening we have made in the skin of the animal, and the closed 

 length of either end, the neck ; if we take a small glass stopper 

 and push it, with the head uppermost, to the end of the purse, 

 its neck representing the cervical vertebrae, we have the precise 

 iituation of the animal : to pursue the operation, suppose the 

 head only of the stopper to have been thickly covered with 

 strong gum water, so that the end of the purse, representing 

 the skin, adheres pretty firmly to it ; we take the neck of the 

 stopper between our fingers, and pulling it downwards towards 

 the slit of the purse, we exemplify the rest by gradually disen- 

 gaging the purse from the head of the stopper, until it adhere* 

 only at the tip, as we disengage the skin from the head of the 

 animal until we reach the muzzle; we conclude the exemplifi- 

 cation by drawing the end of the purse (which we have thus be- 

 gun to turn inside out) back again. 

 c 2 



