EQUIPMENT, ARMS, AND SPECIMENS 755 
ventral cut and severing the leg and then, by making a short 
cut on the back at the fetlocks, the leg bones may be severed 
at that point and the skin of the leg stripped back to the 
knee or hock, as the case may be, and the bone removed 
from below. This method can only be employed where salt 
is to be used or where, as in carnivores, the skin can be com¬ 
pletely reversed and dried wrong side out. The method can¬ 
not be used on such thick-skinned mammals as rhinoceros, 
hippopotamus, giraffe, and elephant, in which the skin is 
too thick to be manipulated. Buffalo and eland are the 
limit of its possibilities. 
The preservation of the entire skin of the elephant pre¬ 
sents a special case; for, owing to its large size, it cannot be 
handled in one piece as is possible in rhinoceros and giraffe. 
Cow elephants and small bulls may be conveniently ma¬ 
nipulated by cutting the skins into three sections. The head 
is first cut off close behind the skull where the cut is hidden 
by the immense ears, and further cuts are made on the ears 
and trunk as already described. The body skin is then cut 
into halves by a cut extending along the median line of the 
whole length of the back from the neck to the tail and con¬ 
tinued on the ventral surface, following the median line of 
the belly to the throat. A cut along the inner side of each 
leg is then made from the hoof to the median ventral cut. 
An additional cut on the under side of the tail is made from 
the base to the tip. In very large bull elephants it is found 
necessary to again divide each half by a transverse cut ex¬ 
tending midway between the two legs from the dorsal cut 
to the ventral. This results in sectioning the elephant’s 
skin into five pieces. 
In the preservation of skulls for scientific purposes great 
