A FEW SUGGESTIONS. 



169 



upon the drying" board, which you suspend by strings. In less than 

 an hour the ants have found them again. You clean them a second 

 time, and now anoint the strings with carbolic acid, tar, kerosene 

 oil, and camphor, any of which you think would turn back an 

 insect with the slightest self-respect, but your trouble is for naught. 

 Later you find that water is the only thing that will keep them back, 

 so you borrow cans and plates, fill them with water, and arrange 

 pedestals upon which you think that your skins are safe. After a 

 while you hear a buzzing, you look at your skins, and see some 

 large green flies upon them. You drive them away, but the next 

 day you find gimlet-holes through the heads and beaks of your 

 birds. They were made by maggots hatched from eggs of the flies. 

 When at last your skins are dry, you go to pack them, and as you 

 lift them up, black beetles scurry out from under them. You find 

 that they have burrowed between the skin and bones of the tarsi 

 and wings of your skins, until they are mere shells ready to fall in 

 pieces at a touch. You collect up to the last day of your stay, and 

 have some green skins which you pack with the greatest care. 

 After two days on mule-back you arrive at your next station, and at 

 once proceed to air your skins. The green ones are dry enough 

 now ; but what horrible monstrosities 1 — their necks twisted and bent, 

 their feathers lying the wrong way, their bodies distorted. Some of 

 your skins that you thought were thoroughly dried were evidently 

 not so, as they are now covered with a fungous mould, their black 

 beaks a pale silvery color crumbling at the touch. You resolve to 

 do better at this place, and you put your drying skins out in the 

 sun. In a little while you hear a noise, and look out in time to see 

 a black vulture flying up to the roof with your best skin, one that 

 you have taken especial pains to preserve. You stand helplessly 

 looking on until it is torn in pieces and left in disgust. After that, 

 you keep your skins indoors, but that night the mice take a fancy 

 to examine them, and the next morning you find the floor strewn 

 with wings and tails. It is but poor consolation to think that the 

 arsenic may perhaps have poisoned the mice. 



