i6o TAXIDERMY AND MODELLING 



plaster as described in many worlcs on biology,^ and such 

 methods may be modified to suit various classes of the animal 

 kingdom. 



DIVISION IV 



THE PREPARATION OF SKELETONS AND THE TAWING OF SKINS 



Skeletons 



Skeletons, which are necessities in all that relateis to ana- 

 tomical investigation, and are therefore objects to be desired 

 in all museums, may be justified as being certainly scientific, 

 and, when well made, artistic. The making of skeletons, 

 however, involves so many disagreeables, that their preparation 

 should be handed over to those whose business it is. 



Most works on taxidermy treat bones in a light-hearted 

 manner, which makes one wonder if the writers know anything 

 at all about their preparation. The time-honoured method is to 

 cut as little flesh from the subject as possible, and to place the 

 mass in a tub and cover it with water ; the flesh in the course 

 of a few months or a year, according to size and situation, 

 decomposes, and the bones are then fished out, one by one, 

 from the horrible slime, washed, drilled, washed again, sun-dried, 

 bleached by lime, and wired together, the .taxidermist or 

 professional bone-maker losing, meanwhile, a few of the minor 

 bones (which mean anything less than the skull or long-bones) 

 and considerately replacing their loss (if he ever misses them) 

 by other bones taken, if possible, from another of the same 

 species of animal, but not allowing himself to be fettered by any 

 considerations as to sex or age, nor as to the normal position 

 of such trifling objects as the phalanges, which are, as he thinks, 

 pretty much alike in most mammals. 



^ See Practical Zoology, Marshall and Hurst (last edition), Introduction, pp. xxi.- 



