51 
stretcher with the flesh side out for a day or two. When the skin is partly 
dry, but not brittle, turn it right side out and hang it up to complete the 
drying. 
Sumner and Swarth (1924) described a method of stretching small 
skins uniformly for use in accurate determination of colour tones by 
instrumental means, the flat skin being laid out on a block and small 
pulley weights attached to the edges of the skin. However, they seem 
to have prepared many of their skins by first measuring the animal in 
the flesh, then stretching the skin slightly by hand while it was being 
pinned to the drying-board. The skin was pinned at eight points — tip of 
nose, extremity of each of the four feet, one at middle of each flank, and 
one at tip of tail. An important part of this technique consisted in thorough 
removal of grease from the skin by means of benzene. 
Figure 11. Wooden and wire stretchers for cased skins. 
The writer as well as many other collectors have pinned or pegged 
out skins to dry in emergencies, but have not found the method well 
adapted for small skins as they break and tear easily when being examined. 
Great care should be taken not to overstretch a skin, and to dry it 
as small as possible without allowing wrinkles to form. A skin which 
has shrunk in the natural process of drying can be moistened and 
stretched at any time, but when a skin is once over-stretched, it is almost 
impossible to reduce it to natural size again. If the skin is allowed to 
wrinkle, the sides of the wrinkles may come together, preventing rapid 
drying, and local decomposition may set in and the hair slip off in the 
cracks. Where preservatives are not available , the skins of all animals 
should be dried flesh side out. Small skins dry very quickly, and had 
best be left as they dry, until they can receive laboratory attention. If 
the skin is properly cleaned and stretched it will need no other attention, 
except to keep it out of the reach of mice, moths, and dermestes. 
