PROCESS FOR preservation. 
265 
ing composition called arsenic soap.* We can recommend 
this soap from long experience ; the birds we preserved 
with it near twenty years ago in Brazil are as perfect 
now as they W'ere the first day they were skinned. 
We cannot say so much of a different composition so 
strongly recommended by an amateur '1, who seems to 
think it a modern discovery : spirits of wine and coro. 
sive sublimate, however, has been in use in this country, 
as a preservative against insects, time out of mind, and 
it is strongly recommended by sir James Smith ; J it is 
probably a safeguard against some insects, but is un. 
questionably inferior to the arsenic soap, originally 
invented, we believe, by the French. 
(221.) There are two ways in use of opening a 
bird ; the first is by lifting up one of the wings and 
making an incision down the whole length of its side, 
from the shoulder joint to that of the thigh : the 
second is by parting the feathers in front and making 
the incision down the middle of the breast and belly, 
beginning at the top of the breast, and cutting in a 
straight line as far as the vent. The former is certainly 
the best, because the wing conceals the subsequent 
sewing up of the skin, and gives the bird, in front, an 
appearance of plumpness and smoothness which we can 
scarcely have by any other method ; it is, however, the 
most difficult to inexperienced hands, and, therefore. 
» Arsenici Oxydi ; Saponis 3i. : Potasste Carbonatis 3vi. ; Aqua Satu- 
rata 3vi. ; CHmimoraj 5jj* 
+ I made thi* foJlowiiig experiment with Mr. Watorton’ii composition 
when in Brazil ; — The ants, which swarmed in a room 1 inhabited at Tcr- 
nambuco, had committed great devastation among the prepared iusccta 
and birds. While preserving one of the latter, 1 cut olf a piece of the 
flesh, and, after saturating it with the composition, laid it in the path 
which led lo one of their holes. The little creatures seemed at first lo 
be somewhat suapiclou.s of its wholcsomeness j but, after walking about 
and upon it, and examining it witli their antenna-, they seemeil to pro- 
nounce a tayourable verdict, for one and all began dragging it away to the 
entrance of their nest, where it soon disappeared beneath the 
floor. The experimuut w'as repeated three times, and the same Jesuit Al- 
lowed. I'he mixture had been brought from England, aod 1 “O 
reason to believe it was defective in the ]>rcparation. After tins ^ 
determined on using the arsenic soap; naturally conelucUng that it ants 
would devour the soaked Hesh of a bird, they would not scruple to attact 
its skin, which could only be washed with the liquor on the inJtt’r side. _ 
J Introduction to Botany. 
