﻿176 HELD AND FOREST. 



we frequently meet with bones beautifully bleached by the sun and 

 the weather, and these bones make no poor show in our collection. 



We have seen entire skeletons left by birds of prey clean enough to 

 grace a cabinet, we have stood beside them with sketch book, and 

 pencil, have drawn their varied forms, until we were as familar with 

 their structure as a child with his marbles. But when we wish speci- 

 mens for our cabinet we cannot rely upon our luck in getting 

 whitened bones from the fields, we must resort to our own energy 

 and labor to procure them. Yet those field studies are invaluable 

 helps, they facilitate our progress in the work, and they teach us that 

 knowledge gained from nature in her simplest forms, is valuable, be- 

 cause learned from a book on whose title page is inscribed the word 

 Truth, 



There are two methods for preparing bones. One is to keep the 

 subject covered with water, never changing it or pouring it off un- 

 til the flesh is entirely decomposed, and the bones free to wash off in 

 clean cold water; they must then be placed in the sun to whiten. We 

 confess to having tried this upon one occasion, but it was too offensive 

 to bring near an inhabited dwelling. Another method is to clean the 

 animal as for cooking any intelligent cook can do this, with the cau- 

 tion to break no bones. It is best to have two specimens of the same ani- 

 mal, to provide for any accident, as the breaking, or the loss of a bone, 

 so that it can be replaced by one of its own kind. A vessel of boiling 

 water must be ready to receive the subject, where it can remain not 

 longer than twenty minutes, longer than that will injure the bones, by 

 making them oily. Small subjects, such as bats, humming-birds and 

 the like, must never be subjected to boiling water save by dipping 

 them occasionally to free them from blood. 



A very little instruction will teach the plain rules for cleaning the 

 bones; this we term the rough work of skeleton making, though some 

 bones require the most delicate manipulation, we refer especially to 

 the hyoid bones. It is also difficult to preserve the cartilage attached 

 to the ribs and other parts; frequently it gives way, and we have to 

 substitute cotton or cord, dipped in glue, and looped to imitate it, 

 but. with care the cartilage, unless extremly delicate, can be preserved. 

 The vertebrae must be cleaned separately, as well as the other bones, 

 using for this purpose delicate knives, scissors and brushes. 



After separating the bones, proceed to cut off the flesh with knives, 



