To skin frogs, they must be plunged for an hour or so into the hardening solution, No. 15, and then skinned out from the mouth. This requires a finer hand and greater patience even than skinning a snake, as they must be carefully cut all around the mouth, and the body drawn out to the tips of the toes. They may then be filled with sand or plaster. Various comic scenes may be made by skilfully grouping frogs, but if required to stand on their hind legs, etc.., they will have to be wired, by pushing fine wires or stout "needle points" through a small piece of board into the sole of the foot, to run a little distance up the legs. A drop or two of strong glue, or shellac, may then be placed under each foot, which should be tied down until the glue sets hard.
Tortoises and turtles may be skinned out, by having the skin of the legs, tail, and head, cut away all round from their attachments to the under shell or plastron. The joints of the limbs should then be cut away from the inside, and the tortoise or turtle laid on its back, in which position the separated limbs hang down, remaining only attached by their top skin (now underneath), to the upper part of the shell or carapace. This exposes the whole of the remaining skin and flesh, which must be cut and scraped out with knives, or with the under-cutting tool. The limbs are then skinned out, preserved and stuffed, and their proper bottom edges, when in position, pushed back and attached by needle points to the plastron.
Lizards, "horned toads," and chameleons may be cut underneath and filled out with sand or plaster.
In all cases where sand is used it may, after the animal is thoroughly dry, be shaken out if desired; but if the reptile is not very large, it is better to leave it in.
Dry plaster will, in nearly all cases, be found the best medium for filling out the skins of reptiles; with this I have succeeded in giving characteristic and life-like attitudes to moderately-sized alligators, etc..
Very large saurians may be mounted by either of the methods referred to in the closing sentences of the last two chapters.
[CHAPTER X.
DRESSING AND SOFTENING SKINS OR FURS AS LEATHER.]
THE art of tanning is, as I before observed (vide Chapter I.), of the highest antiquity, as systems which are now in vogue must have been known — if even in a modified form — to the ancients. We may roughly divide the operation of tanning into two distinct classes: One which deals with skins without the preservation of the fur, and which turns the skin so operated upon into the material known as leather; and the other in which we seek to preserve the fur or hair in its normal position, at the same time dressing or rendering soft the actual skin itself. [Footnote: Some time during 1874, Mr. Joseph Tussaud read a paper before the Society of Arts, in which he described an ingenious method of removing the fur of any animal to an artificial "backing" of india-rubber or flannel, whilst the original skin was utilised as leather.]
The first process — the making of leather — does not lie within the scope of this work; suffice it to say, that the hair or fur is first removed by lime, etc.., and that after the skin is scraped it is treated variously with oak bark, valonia, sumach, divi-divi, etc..; it is a long and tedious process, and certainly does not lie within the province of a taxidermist to attempt; and though it is possible for a tanner to preserve the fur with the skin, yet the attempt is undesirable, by reason of the false or unnatural colour it permanently gives the fur — totally destroying the character of a light one, and heightening or lowering, as the case may be, the tint of a dark fur. [Footnote: Technical works on Tanning are "Tanning, Currying, and Leather-dressing," by F. Dussance: "The Arts of Tanning, Currying, and Leather-dressing," from the French of J. de Fontenelle and F. Malepeyre.]
To obviate all these difficulties and disagreeable effects, a totally distinct method of dressing skins has been devised, which is called "white leather dressing." Before I describe this, however, it may be as well to say that no liquid, powder, or combination of liquids or powders, is known into which a skin can be plunged, and — without the aid of manual labour — come out as leather. I mention this to correct a popular error, many people supposing that labour has no part in the preparation of "white leather." To those who are not prepared to work hard, and very hard indeed, I say, Do not waste your time in reading this chapter.