78 SOO. OF AM. TAXIDERMISTS, ANNUAL REPORT. 
account, and certainly are worthy the pity of the. taxidermist of 
the present day. 
This condition of things can easily be avoided in the collec- 
tions of the future if care and labor are bestowed in the prepa- 
ration of museum material. 
I have often been surprised by taxidermists, of standing and 
experience, asking me the question : “ How do you manage to 
clean your specimens so effectually ?” “ How do you make them 
so white ?” “ I do not have such luck with mine.” There is no 
secret about it nor any luck. 
It is accomplished in a very simple manner and with very 
little difficulty when once understood ; so to those who may not 
know, I will give the benefit of my experience. I have tried 
various metliods, and I am convinced that there is but one way 
to efi^ectually obtain the desired result, and always secure a good, 
clean, and white specimen, and one that will remain so for many 
years. 
All birds naturally arrange themselves into two classes : 1st, 
Old and thoroughly dry skins ; 2d, Hew or fresh skins. In both 
classes you have large and small, old and young, black and white, 
all more or less discolored by the grease coming out of the sliot- 
holes and the openings in the skin. Grease, when exposed to the 
air, soon changes color, and becomes a rusty yellow ; and when 
allowed to remain for a long time, so thoroughly saturates the 
skin and feathers that it is with the greatest difficulty sucli stains 
are removed, and often it is impossible to entirely do so. 
When the skin is first taken from the bird is the time to re- 
move the cause of the evil, before the fatty matter has changed 
(iolor and penetrated every quill, and finally found its way along 
every feather. 
If tliis precaution is taken in the outset, nearly all the oil can 
be exti’acted from the skin. 
Wliile skinning the bird plenty of boxwood sawdust, corn- 
meal, or plaster of paris should be freely put on the skin, and 
when filled with oil should be removed and more clean material 
used. By scraping the skm thoroughly, and using plenty of 
plaster or meal, almost the whole of the grease can be removed. 
By this time the feathers have become more or less soiled. 
