110 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol, XIII. 
climates a few drops of carbolic acid or other disinfectant may be put on 
the wool to keep off insects.) Take care just to fill out the skin without over- 
stretching it, and try to get all your skins filled out to about the same degree. 
Take a piece of straight wire long enough to extend from the front end of the 
belly opening to the tip of the tail, sharpen, if necessary, one end of it, and 
wind round it enough cotton wool to fill out the skin of the tail, then brush it 
with arsenical soap and push the pointed end down to the extreme tip of the 
tail skin, and fit the near end into the belly, packing it round with the wool of 
the body. Puta small piece of wool into the empty skin of the arms and legs. 
Then stitch up the opening down the belly. 
[V]. If at all oily or greasy, the fur may be cleaned by being wiped with a 
rag dipped in benzine, and then having fine sawdust gently rubbed into it, this 
being afterwards brushed out when dry, 
[VI]. Lay the skin on a board or piece of cork, draw out the fore paws 
forward and pin them down to the board by a pin passed boldly through the 
middle of the paw. Take care that they are pinned as close into the sides of 
the neck or head as they possibly can be, in order to prevent their claws 
catching in other skins when all are packed together in boxes. Similarly pin 
back soles downwards, the hind feet by the sides of the tail. It is of con- 
siderable importance that neither fore nor hind feet should project laterally 
outwards, nor should curl up in drying, and that the fingers and toes should 
be kept close together and parallel, not spread out sideways. : 
[VII]. As the skin dries, try to get the face to assume as natural a shape 
as possible, and the ears to stand up in an erect position, ‘Tie the label on to 
the ankle before pinning the skin down, 
[VIII]. Disarticulate the skull from the trunk, label it with a correspond- 
ing number to that on the skin, and then let it dry, In a dry climate this 
may be done almost without any cleaning, and even in a wet one, if the skull 
be dropped into some sawdust artificially dried, little cleaning need be done ; 
ab most the eyes, brain, and tongue may be taken out, but, in cutting out the 
last, great care must be taken that the delicate bones behind the palate are not 
injured, In a general way, try and do as little to the skull as the climate will 
admit of, although, of course, it must not be allowed to become rotten, Dry- 
ing naturally or artificially is the best, and arsenic or other chemicals should 
not be put on it, insects being kept off by well-fitting tin boxes, and the use of - 
a little naphthaline or other disinfectant in the box. Fly-blown skulls should 
not be dropped in the same box with drying skulls. 
[IX]. Pack the skins up carefully in small boxes when they are dry, with 
enough wool rolled round them to prevent their shaking about; do not roll 
them up separately in paper unless the exigencies of travel make this course 
absolutely necessary. It is a good plan to have with you an ordinary cork- 
lined insect box,in which the pieces of cork can be pinned for travelling, 
When the skins are partly dry they can be taken off the separate pieces of 
