78 PRACTICAL TAXIDERMY. 



It is, I Relieve, more efficacious if laid on liot tlian cold, but 

 the danger to health is greater. I venture to say that if there 

 is anything which will preserve objects for an indefinite period 

 it is corrosive sublimate. Deadly though it be, and dangerous 

 to work with, it has the advantage of being used as a finishing 

 preparation, and therefore need not, except in extreme cases, 

 be handled. 



Instead of rectified spirits of wine, I have used with much 

 success as an exterior wash for valuable bird skins, the following : 



No. 18. — Preservative Wash. 

 Pure sulphuric ether, 1 pint. | Corrosive sublimate, 6grs. 



Keep in a stoppered bottle, labelled " Poison," and when used 

 apply with a brush. This is more rapid in its evaporation than 

 spirits of wine, but is very expensive. Of course, the more 

 rapidly any spirit evaporates, and deposits poison previously 

 held in solution, the better chance you have of not spoiling 

 your specimens. 



Preservative Fluids eor Fishes and Eeptiles. 



I have lately given a great deal of attention to the preserva- 

 tion of fishes — and especially large ones — in some fluid which 

 should have four advantages : 



1. Perfect preservation of the specimen — and which also, if a 

 foreign one, is consequently a long time in transit. 



2. Its freedom from causing great shrinking or shrivelling of 

 the integument. 



3. The points 1 and 2 being so well balanced that the speci- 

 men is in a fit state — after many months — either to be treated 

 as a specimen shown in fluid, or to be mounted by the process of 

 taxidermy. 



4. The comparative cheapness and facility of carriage of the 

 preservative medium. 



In trying to obtain all these advantages there seem almost 

 insuperable difficulties in the reconcilement of these diverse 

 ■conditions. 



Dr. A. Giinther, F.R.S., the eminent ichthyologist and Chief 

 of the British Museum, recommends, in his new book, that pure 



