480 
Notes of a trip from Simla to the Spiti Valley. [No. 5, 
bottles for insects, filled to near the top with spirit; a dozen quires 
or so of large bazar paper with a couple of pressing boards and straps 
for ferns, &c.; a broad mouthed glass bottle with a false bottom of 
card, filled up with ammonia for capturing and killing moths, and 
pins and a few soft deal store boxes, pill boxes for shells, a hammer and 
chisel, compass and telescope. 
To economise spirit, a jar should be devoted to the reception 
of recent captures, into which all animals may first be placed 
after removing the entrails , and allowed to remain for a couple 
of days. From this jar, they may then be transferred to a store 
jar, the spirit of which, by this plan, will not require to be 
changed, the spirit in the first jar alone requiring occasional re¬ 
newal, as it gets foul by use. Unless an animal is opened and the en¬ 
trails extracted, it is hopeless to suppose that it will keep well, as 
the access of the spirit is not sufficiently free to effect the preserva¬ 
tion of the contents of the abdomen, not to mention the saving of 
space as well as the better preservation of the specimen this simple 
operation secures. All small mammals and lizards, and snakes up to 3 
or 4 feet in length are most effectually and easily thus preserved. 
It is a mistake too to suppose, as some people do, that a skin can 
be properly prepared at any time, if once dried. No skin can be 
properly prepared that has not been preserved with arsenical soap 
when fresh,—I mean for museum purposes, as of course a coarse hide 
may be tanned at any time,—and it is best, therefore, never to defer 
the process till next day, however tired one may be, if the specimen 
is of interest ; neither is it safe to trust to a servant in such matters. 
* 
Some small work, however, on Taxidermy should be procured by any 
one who has not previously made the subject a study, and is at the 
same time anxious to collect during the trip. Skulls of animals are 
comparatively easy to procure and carry, and are always worth so 
doing ; but most people adopt a ruinous plan to prepare them, viz., by 
macerating in water or burying them. This may clear them of flesh, 
but it will cause the teeth to fall out. Whilst travelling, the best plan 
is simply to pare off the flesh and dry them, with the ligaments and 
lower jaw attached, in the sun, extracting the brain through the 
occipital foramen, without however enlarging the aperture. By 
this means the teeth remain fixed and the skull can at any subse¬ 
quent period be properly cleaned and whitened with one or two coats 
