54 Preservation of Animals, Birds, Fishes, ^c. 



eyes and the adjoining parts of the skull should be filled with cotton 

 or tow, that the original form may be preserved and the skin dried in 

 the best manner. Here we may remark that the muscles about the 

 ears must be removed, and the skin freed as far as possible from car- 

 tilaginous substances and then spread over with arsenical soap. The 

 feet should be skinned as nearly as possible, and the bones cleared of 

 muscles and carefully cleaned. In the case of some animals, the 

 hollow skin should be cut open, separated on all sides, the muscles 

 extracted and all the parts spread over with soap. 



Cloven footed animals should have their fetlock joints severed at 

 the hinder part, and the skin taken off as far as the hoof. The whole 

 of the skin and the bones of the feet, when cleaned, should be spread 

 over with the soap, and the abdomen, after it is stuffed, sewed up. 

 All this process however is not indispensable. Alum when used for 

 a few days forms a very good preparation, though the skin should 

 afterwards be overlaid with arsenical soap : Skins thus prepared 

 should not be dried in a hot sun, but in the shade, otherwise they will 

 be burned and make bad preparations. When the animal is very fat, 

 the adipose matter which adheres to the skin must be peeled off. 



(6.) Birds. — Birds should be opened in the abdomen, the skin strip- 

 ped down at the sides until the thighs can be drawn out, the legs sev- 

 ered at the knee joints, and the skin peeled from the calf of the leg, 

 which should be freed from its muscular parts. The skin should then 

 be separated around the tail, the bone of which should be severed from 

 the pelvis, and all the skin disengaged as far as the wings. The 

 bones of the wings should be parted at the shoulder joints, and the 

 breast, the neck and the head laid bare as far as the forehead. Then 

 the skull should be separated from the vertebrae of the neck, clear- 

 ed of its muscles, tongue, &c. the brains taken out and all the parts 

 supplied with arsenical soap. Afterwards the eye sockets should be 

 filled with cotton and the skin carefully drawn over the skull. The 

 wings should be slit on the inner side, and the muscles about the lar- 

 ger bones taken out, and these parts as well as the whole head lined 

 with arsenical soap. A piece of wood of the length of the body 

 should then be placed with one point in the cavity of the head and 

 the other in the tail, in order to secure the whole skin. The abdo- 

 men should be filled with cotton, the feathers placed in order, and a 

 band of paper or packing thread, wound about the whole bird to se- 

 cure the wings in their proper position. The bird should then be 

 dried. Thus prepared it should be often turned round, which is still 



