198 PRACTICAL TAXIDERMY. 



tanned, or made into soft leather, by any one of tlie processes 

 previously described. If time is no object tbe skin may, 

 after the first rubbing-in of the preservative, be stretched 

 by the old-fashioned method of "pegging out," or by the 

 more efficient professional " frame," made of four bars of wood, 

 to which the specimen is *' laced," or sometimes made of 

 bars of wood and stout sacking, adjustable by means of wood 

 screws, which open the bars and stretch the attached skin in a 

 proper manner to the required size. When alum, &c., cannot be 

 obtained, recourse must be had to common salt, which is 

 generally' procurable in any part of the world ; a strong — 

 almost a saturated — solution with water must be made of this 

 in a tub, and the skin placed in it. If possible, change the 

 liquor after a few days and add fresh ; head the tub up tightly 

 and the skin will keep many years. I received the skin of a polar 

 bear, sent from the Arctic Regions to Leicester for the Town 

 Museum, simply flayed and pickled in this manner, and after a 

 lapse of two years it was examined, and found to be perfectly 

 sweet and firm — quite fit for mounting when opportunity served. 

 Of course, these salted subjects are terrible nuisances either to 

 mount or to treat as flat skins, having to go through many pro- 

 cesses to rid them of the salt which pervades them. The first 

 process is thorough washing and steeping in water, constantly 

 changed ; after that experience alone determines the treatment 

 to be pui'sued. If alum were mixed with rough salt in the pro- 

 portion of two parts of the former to one of the latter, the solution 

 would become more astringent in its operation. A pickle made 

 of oatmeal, saltpetre, and boiling vinegar has been recommended, 

 but I have not yet tried it. 



I think I have now put the would-be tanner and currier in a 

 fair way to do some of the dirtiest work imaginable, and if after 

 a fair trial he does not cry, "Hold, enough!" and hand all 

 future leather- dressing over to the professionals, I shall indeed 

 think him " hard to kill." 



In conclusion, I can only reiterate to those who wish to dO' 

 skins well by any of the foregoing methods, that nothing can be 

 done without hard work. 



