With each scientific skin a record should be made of the following details:
- Length, end of nose to root of tail.
- Length of tail from root to end of bone.
- Height at shoulders.
- Color of eyes, lips, feet, etc.
- Name of species, sex, locality, date, and collector's name.
These may be noted down on a corner of the outline sheet, which is numbered and filed away; the skin tagged with a duplicate number is put in the pickle jar or made up as a dried skin, whichever is desired, or the full information may be put on a tag attached to the skin. Many collectors simply number all specimens and preserve all information in their note books. The foregoing details are sufficient for animals less than bear and deer in size.
The larger animals should have as many as possible of the following additional measurements:
| Distance hip joint to shoulder joint. | ||
| Circumference | of | forearm. |
| " | " | neck. |
| " | " | body. |
| Back of leg. | ||
| Weight if possible. | ||
Skins of large animals, a bear for instance, may have a slight wrapping of tow or excelsior on the leg bones to prevent their coming in contact with the skin and the whole skin laid to dry on a scaffold of poles or something similar. When nearly dry fold up with the legs inside in a square shaped package. This can be tied up with heavy cord or even sewed up in burlap to prevent damaging the skin in transit. Fish and reptiles are not a success as dry skins.
CHAPTER VIII.
PREPARING DRY AND WET SKINS FOR MOUNTING.
Let us assume that we have a dry skin each of a small bird and a furred animal which has been properly made up sometime in the past and which it is necessary to mount. Taking the bird skin first, the usual way is to first wrap the unfeathered parts of legs in some strips of cotton cloth saturated with water containing a few drops of carbolic acid until they begin to relax or lose their stiffness somewhat.
Then the filling may be removed from the whole interior of the skin and be replaced with pieces of cotton, dampened as before, and the whole skin wrapped in a cloth or shut in a close box until with some scraping and manipulation it becomes as pliable as when first removed. Any little lumps of dried muscle should be broken up and the edges of the opening cut, scraped and stretched out as they are very apt to wrinkle and curl up, thus reducing the size of the skin considerably.