736 

FOREST AND STREAM. 

[Nov. 9, 1907. 



How Tos for Beginners. 

Skinning a Deer's Head. 
Tue hunter, who kills a deer, antelope, moose, 
caribou or any horned game animal, ought to 
know enough about preparing the head to prop- 
erly take off the scalp and clean the skull. Often, 
to be sure, his guide’ will know how to do this, 
but it is just as likely also that the guide may 
know no more about it than the hunter, and in 
this case the two are likely to make a bungling 
job of the work. The operation is an entirely 
simple one, and at the cost of a little careful 
labor, the specimens can be saved in such shape 
that the taxidermist will have no difficulty in 
making a good job of the mounting. No preser- 
vative is required for the work, and no tools, ex- 
cept an ordinary skinning knife and a sharp jack 
knife. 
Assuming that your deer, moose or antelope 
has been secured, and that its head and horns 
are uninjured by accident, such as a break by 
a bullet having struck them or by a fall down 
the cliffs, the first thing that you must do is to 
bleed the game. Never by any chance cut the 
throat across. Instead, insert your hunting knife 
at the point of the breast, holding the blade with 
its back toward the animal’s backbone, thrust 
aS knife deep into the chest, and then turning 
the blade a little feel for and cut the large blood 
vessels close to the heart. If your knife is prop- 
erly sharp you will have no difficulty in doing 
this, and when you have done it you will feel the 
knife cut through the rather tough blood vessels. 
When you ea the knife from the wound 
a little blood will probably follow. Only a little, 
however, for the bleeding will almost all be with- 
in and the blood will be held in the cavity of the 
chest. 
Now, if you please, turn the animal on its back 
and rip it up and proceed with the work of clean- 
ing it in the ordinary way and then, when the 
entrails have been removed, draw the animal to 
one side and Bee to take off the head. 
Insert the small blade of your jack-knife, which 
10uld be very sharp, midway between the horns 
at the back of the head, and follow the crest of 
re neck down along the ridge to a point be- 
tween the shoulder blades. Still using the small 
blade, cut at right angles to the first cut, down 
through the skin of the shoulder to the middle 
of the breast and around on the other side up 
to the other shoulder, until the blade of the knife 
comes to the longitudinal cut along the back of 
qe neck. It is well to make the neck as long as 
possible, because the head always looks better 
with a long neck, provided that in mounting the 
taxidermist fills the neck to a thickness propor- 
tionate to the length. Once in a while one sees 
a deer head mounted with an enormously long 
neck which is nowhere much thicker than a 
man’s arm, but it is to be hoped that your taxi!- 
dermist will not do such a grotesque piece of 
work. 
Now, with your skinning knife remove the 
skin from the neck, being careful to stretch the 
skin as little as possible. Leave no flesh on the 
skin. When you have turned the skin to the 
skull above and to the angles of the lower jaw 
you may, if you please, cut the head off at the 
first neck vertebra or joint and carry the head 
and skin to camp, finishing there the work of 
taking the skin off the skull, but if you have 
plenty of time it is perhaps better to complete 
the job where the animal lies. If then, you do 
not take off the head, put up your skinning knife 
and again use the small sharp blade of the jack- 
knife. Insert the point of this blade at the base 
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of one horn and make a short diagonal cut back * 
from the horn to the edge of the long cut 
that went down on the back of the neck. Make 
another similar cut from the horn on the other 
side. Now, skin away a little on either side of 
both these cuts just back of the horns so as to 
free the skin from the skull. Introduce the point 
of the small blade of your jack-knife close to the 
horn in one of these cuts and pass it around the 
horn trying to cut the skin just as close as pos- 
sible to the horn. Do the same on the other 
side. 
The tongue-shaped piece of skin lying between 
the horns is easily separated from the bone. 
Turning the head a little to one side, free the 
skin from the back of the skull on the side that 
is uppermost and from the lower jaw and the 
cheek. This will bring you to the point where 
the ear meets the skull. You will, of course, 
recognize this at once. It is hard white gristle 
slightly covered with reddish flesh. Bend the 
ear forward and cut through this gristle down 
toward the skull. It is well to make your cut 
closer to the skull than is really necessary, be- 
cause if you are careless you may cut a little 
too far from the skull and possibly may cut 
through the skin which is here but lightly haired. 
A cut through the skin here must be sewed up, 
and owing to the thinness of the hair the sewing 
cannot be concealed and is quite certain to show, 
and thus to be a blemish. Having cut through 
the ear, continue the skinning down toward the 
nose, being careful not to make any holes in the 
skin. Before you reach the eye you will have 
to turn the head over and work on the other 
side till the ear and skin on that side are freed 
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How the hide 1s cul 
Diagram showing cuts as they appear when looking 
Down on top of the head. 

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pw ; 
h 
¢ 
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DOTTED LINES SHOW CUTS. 
down nearly to the eye. Incidentally you will 
work the skin away from the cheeks and lower 
jaw. 
When you come to the eye and to the so-called 
lachrymal pit, which lies beneath the eye, you 
must be careful. Put your left hand under the 
skin and introduce a finger into the eye of the 
animal, grasping the eyelid, and pulling it out 
so that the muscle about the eye is stretched. 
Cut through this carefully and slowly, for it 
would be a pity to spoil the head by making 
a hole in the eyelid. Just below the eye there 
is a deep hollow in the bone into which the skin 
fits closely. Follow the bone around with the 
point of your knife, pulling the skin free and 
not cutting any holes in it. After you have 
passed below the lachrymal pit turn the head 
over and free the eye and lachrymal pit on the 
other side. If this has all been done with care, 
you now only have the lips and the nostrils 
of the deer to work on, These are thick and 
fleshy, and by putting your fingers in the deer’s 
mouth you will find little difficulty in cutting off 
the lips all around, but it will save you some 
trouble a little later, if you skin as carefully and 
as close to the skin as possible, leaving most of 
the flesh of the lips on the skull. 

































































When the lips have been freed, the scalp, by 
which is meant the skin of the head and neck, 
is finally separated from the head and may be 
thrown to one side. 
Now, to separate the skull from the neck, take 
the small blade of your jack-knife, and having 
bent the nose of the beast down toward its breast, 
insert the point of the blade close to the back 
of the skull and cut away on either side. The 
bending of the nose forward leaves an opening 
between the skull and the atlas or first vertebra 
of.the neck and you have only some tough liga- 
ment to cut through. Now, stretch the animal’s 
nose forward or even bend it upward, that is to- 
ward the line of the back, and with your butcher 
knife cut across the animal’s throat close to the| 
angles of the lower jaw. Cut through all the 
flesh until your knife is stopped by the veterbre,| 
and then, taking the nose in one hand and one 
horn in the other, twist the animal’s head, and 
when you can twist it no further give it a sud- 
den jerk. This will dislocate the atlas and very 
likely the head will come away from the verte-| 
bre. If it does not two or three cuts will free it. 
Now insert your knife within one of the 
branches of the lower jaw and close to the chin 
and run it back to and beyond the angle of the 
jaw on that side. Do the same on the other| 
side and the tongue and all the flesh between 
the two prongs of the lower jaw will readily 
come away. 
The head and scalp are now ready to be trans- 
ported to camp. The remaining work can be} 
done at odd times in camp. 
When the skull and scalp are in camp, turn 
the scalp inside out so that you may clean it 
before it dries. With the small blade of your 
jack-knife skin down the gristle of the ears as| 
far as you can and remove all the flesh from the 
gristle. If any shreds of flesh are left on the) 
inside of the neck or head, remove them. Go| 
about the lips with extreme care and shave down| 
the flesh until you have come to, or very nearly| 
to, the skin. In dry weather this flesh will soon| 
dry up, so that it will take no harm, but if ae 
weather should be damp or moist for a few! 
days it is quite possible that if you leave it on 
the skin it may spoil, and if it spoils, the epider-| 
mis is likely to slip, and if this takes place the| 
head will look badly when mounted. If the) 
weather is persistently wet or damp, rub some) 
salt into the lips and about the ears. After you) 
have done this the scalp should be hung up some-| ' 
where in the bushes, or at all events, under a)’ 
shade to dry. Do not allow the scalp to be ex-| : 
posed to the direct rays of the sun while it is | 
drying.. Do not leave it kicking about the camp, |’ 
and do not leave it where your dogs, if you have| 
any, or a coyote or skunk or other small animal] 
may get at it. Any of these carnivores will de-|. 
light to chew the lips of a scalp, and if they do| 
this they will, of course, ruin it. 
After you ‘have finished with the scalp, cal 
the skull down to the stream, and clean it as|| 
well as you can. It will be well for you to take|' 
off the lower jaw and cut and scrape all the 
flesh from it. Scoop out the eyes on either side 
and cut away all the flesh on either side of the| 
nose. Take a small stick six or eight inches| 
long, and holding the skull in the water thrust! 
the stick into the hole in the back of the skull]! 
through which the spinal cord passes, and, by|° 
moving the stick about and punching with it)! 
break up the brain into small fragments -and|‘ 
shake them out with the water that pours from) 
the skull. It will be well enough, if you can dc/® 
it with safety, to leave the skull in the water for! 
a night or two. The running water will soak|! 
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out of the flesh most of the blood that is in it 
and it will dry more quickly. l 
If by any chance the deer, moose or caribou 
should still have velvet on his horns, especial 
care will have to be taken; in the first place}! 
that they shall not get bruised, and in the second) | 
that they shall dry smoothly. Horns in the velvet,|: 
if they can be protected from rubbing, look very} 
well for a few years until the hair which clothes 
the velvet begins to wear off, but if the horns 
have not begun to harden, that is to say if the 
blood is still circulating under the skin rather} 
freely, they are extremely likely to spoil. If thea 
horns are soft the only possible way of saving|} 
them is to hang them upside down somewhere| tt 








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