[CHAPTER XXXVI.]
COLLECTING SKELETONS.
It is really strange that so few American collectors are taught the scientific value of skeletons, and the need to collect them, especially when in the haunts of rare animals. While hundreds of collectors gather bird skins by the cord, perhaps not one out of the whole lot saves a rough skeleton. Any one who is wholly unaccustomed to the preparation of skeletons is apt to stand appalled at the thought of preparing one from the beginning; and, indeed, the final work of cleaning and mounting is no child's play. But let me assure you that, so far as the field work is concerned, you can easily become a successful collector of skeletons of all kinds, even though you may never learn to clean and mount one. All you have to do in the field is to "rough out" skeletons from the flesh, and dry them in compact bundles for shipment.
A Rough Skeleton of a mammal, bird, reptile, or fish, is simply the complete bony framework of the body, from which the most of the flesh has been cut away with a common knife, after which the skeleton and remaining flesh has been dried preparatory to its being, at some indefinite time in the future, taken in hand by a professional osteologist. The work of preparation on such specimens is very simple, and when once learned is easily performed.
Selection of Specimens.—When a choice is possible, select large and perfect adult male specimens as subjects to be skeletonized. The skeletons of young animals are always imperfect in development, do not properly represent a species, and are seldom valuable except for comparison with other specimens of the same species. Very often a fine adult specimen has its skin so badly torn by shot or bullets, or the skin covering is in such a bad state of shedding, moulting, and the like, that the skin is totally unfit for preservation. In such a case the preservation of a fine perfect skeleton becomes a clear gain of one specimen to the collector and to science.
A perfect skeleton is one in which not a bone is missing, and in which no substitutions have been made. But it is by no means always possible to secure a wild animal without breaking some portion of its osteological anatomy. When a bone is broken, the best thing to do is to supply it with a corresponding bone from an animal of similar size and age. Sometimes the closet naturalist, who generally thinks that rare wild animals are gathered like berries, will grumble because a broken bone has thus been replaced, and find fault with the size of the substitute, but that need not trouble the collector's conscience in the least. I once shot a fine prong-horn antelope buck, skeletonized it carefully, cut up the skeleton, and carried the whole of it for three days attached to my saddle, while I rode a very restive and dangerous horse, and also carried two blankets and a Maynard rifle. That skeleton, thus earned, had some broken bones supplied from another specimen. It finally went to Europe, and fell into the hands of a closet naturalist, who blithely found fault with the collector because of the supplied bones. Again, when I once risked drowning in order to enter a cave on a dangerous sea-coast to collect guacharo birds, and got a goodly number, a German closet naturalist complained bitterly because a skin that was sent to him had two missing tail-feathers supplied by two other feathers that were a trifle smaller than the missing ones.
But I did once perform a feat in South America which filled the souls of my friends at Ward's with wonder, and even admiration. In collecting about half a dozen skeletons of capybara, each of which I took care should be absolutely perfect, by some brilliant man[oe]uvre I contrived to send home to the establishment one skeleton which was the happy possessor of two left forelegs and two left hind legs, but never a right one; and in the language of the Old Testament, "his bones are there to this day!"
Skeletons of Mammals: Small Objects.—The smallest quadrupeds—such as bats, small rodents, shrews, and the like—should be eviscerated, and preserved in alcohol, without being skinned; but each specimen should be fully labeled. As a general thing it is best, for various reasons, not to dry such small carcasses.
For all mammals below the size of the Virginia deer, proceed as follows:
1. Remove the skin as expeditiously as possible, in order to have a fair show at the skeleton.