THE SKINNING AND CASTING OF A TIGER 125 



not on to the skin, no ill results will accrue, as what little 

 muscular fibre or flesh is left on the skin may be easily- 

 trimmed off afterwards.) Skinning down as far as the eyes, 

 the greatest possible care had to be exercised, the fingers of 

 the left hand being placed inside to feel for the eye, and 

 around the orbit or bone of the eye the skinning was close 

 upon the bone, in order not to cut the membraneous coats. 

 A thin blue skin which now appeared was cut through, and 

 the skinning from under the eye was quite close to the 

 eyeball on the bone of the opposite ridge of the orbit. This 

 skin, being freed from the bone, relieved the skin along the face 

 for some little distance underneath. The other eye having 

 been treated in like manner, the lips were cut away quite close 

 to the base of the teeth of the upper jaw, and the skinning 

 continued to the cartilage of the nose, which was cut right 

 through, when the skin dropped down leaving the front teeth 

 exposed, and these were carefully cut around. The only point 

 of attachment was now at the under jaw, a large mass of 

 muscle surrounding the large canines and coming almost inside 

 the mouth. This should have been trimmed completely from the 

 bone, when the skin would have fallen off, taking with it some 

 portions of the inner skin of the lips (the mucous membrane), 

 and of the eyes and nose ; but in this instance the skull 

 was not detached. The skin was then placed upon a table, 

 and the operator proceeded to " split the lips," commencing 

 under, or at the side of, the nostrils, where the two skins 

 meet, or rather where the mucous membrane of the lips shows 

 as a shiny skin, carefully splitting or skinning one away from 

 the other quite up to the edges of the lips until the two skins 

 were held there by a thin edge, forming a complete bag. The 

 same process of splitting was performed upon the under jaw, 

 the nostrils, and the eyes, the central cartilage of the nose being 

 split to allow of more freedom in skinning out. Finally the ears 



