THE CAYMAN. 425 



rotund figure. This, together with the rough protuberance which 

 guards the eye from above, may be modelled by my new process, 

 and rendered as elevated as it appeared during the life of the ani- 

 mal. When Swainson tells us that the snout of crocodiles and cay- 

 mans is unusually depressed, I know immediately that he has been 

 at his wonted employment of examining a dried skin. 



In dissecting a cayman for preservation, you may separate the tail 

 at every other joint. This division renders the process extremely 

 easy. The head also may be divided from the body, and replaced 

 afterwards with great success. After the whole of the dissection is 

 finished, you steep the skin for about a quarter of an hour in the 

 solution of corrosive sublimate, and then, by means of sand, you 

 proceed to restore the form and feature which the animal possessed 

 in life. 



An adept in this new mode of preparing zoological specimens for 

 museums (see the " Essays " ) would be enabled to bring home an alli- 

 gator very superior indeed to those hung up in apothecaries' shops 

 during the life of Shakspeare " An alligator stuffed." My cayman 

 is now in as good condition as it was on the day in which I dissected 

 it ; and it will set decay at defiance for centuries to come, provided 

 no accident befall it. 



I have mentioned briefly in the "Wanderings," an account which the 

 governor of Angustura gave me of the boldness and ferocity of the 

 cayman. I may here repeat the story somewhat more at length. 



In the year 1808, I carried Lord Collingwood's despatches up the 

 Oronoque to the city of Angustura, where the Spanish governor, Don 

 Felipe de Ynciarte, resided. I corresponded with him for some time 

 afterwards. He was a soldier, of vast information in the natural 

 history of the country, and had been a great explorer in his time. 

 He showed me a large map of Spanish Guiana, having made it from 

 his own personal survey of those regions in early life. On the break- 

 ing out of the revolutionary war, which, according to Canning's 

 rambling speculation, was to give rise to a thousand republics, this 

 true Spaniard fought for King Ferdinand VII. But fortune having 

 declared against him, he left the Oronoque, and retired to the island 

 of Santa Cruz, where death closed his mortal career. 



The Spaniards, who have more of pleasure than of Puritanism in 



