28. TAXIDERMY. 



out the brains ; the handle of an iron fork is very 

 proper fqr this operation. When the head is well 

 cleaned, we put it back into the skin ; we then take 

 one of the fore legs and skin it as far as possible, 

 always drawing it towards us and pushing the skin 

 the contrary way ; that done, we take away the 

 whole of the flesh, carefully preserving the liga- 

 ments which unite the bones, then replace the leg 

 in its skin, and operate upon the other. We after- 

 wards treat the hind legs in the same way, that is to 

 say, skin them as far as the claws, separate the ten- 

 dons and ligaments from the muscles, leave them 

 adhering to the articulation of the knee, then take 

 all the flesh off the bones, and thrust the leg back 

 into the skin. 



It only remains for us to skin the tail, which is 

 the most difficult. To enable us to do so, we must 

 disengage or bare the first two or three joints ; we 

 tie them strongly with a cord, which we fasten to a 

 cramp iron or to a wall hook ; we pass a cleft stick 

 between the cord which holds the tail and the skin, 

 that is, on the bare joints, which are, of course, 

 placed within the cleft; with a hand on each side 

 we draw the stick towards the extremity, and the 

 tail comes out of its sheath. We extend the skin 

 well upon the table, stretching out the paws, we 

 take away all the muscles which remain inside the 

 skin, and, thus prepared, it is ready for stuffing. 



We will suppose the quadruped on which we oper- 



