In describing the colors of soft parts, I would advise you to purchase the following Windsor & Newton tube colors (oil) and use them as standards for reference: Ivory black, Vandyke brown, burnt umber, burnt sienna, raw sienna, Naples yellow, Indian yellow, chrome yellow, Indian red, vermilion, purple lake, cobalt blue, and indigo.
Labelling.—For scientific purposes, a specimen without a label is not quite so good as no specimen. It takes up room, and is useless. The most important record to make on a label is the name of the locality in which it was taken. Next in importance is the date of its capture. You may leave off everything else if you really must, for as to its name the specimen can speak for itself. But it is by all means desirable that the label should give the name, locality, date, sex, and some measurements. I need not mention "name of the collector," for the collector can always be trusted to look out for that without advice from anybody, even under the most discouraging circumstances.
[CHAPTER IV.]
TREATMENT OF THE SKINS OF SMALL MAMMALS.
Many hundred beautiful and curious quadrupeds are shot every year and allowed to perish utterly for lack of the little knowledge and skill which would enable the hunter to remove and preserve their skins. The operation is simple and easy, the requirement in tools and materials quite insignificant, and the operator has only to exercise a little patient industry to achieve good results. There are few circumstances under which a determined individual finds himself thwarted in his desire to remove and preserve the skin of a dead animal. In nineteen cases out of twenty the result hinges on his own disposition. If he is lazy, a thousand things can hinder his purpose; if he is determined, nothing can. A sharp pocket-knife, a little powdered alum and arsenic in equal parts, or failing that, common salt alone, will do the business in lieu of a better outfit, for any small mammal that ever lived.
I begin with small mammals, because it is squirrels, rabbits, cats, woodchucks, weasels, opossums, raccoons, and foxes that the beginner will fall in with long before he is called upon to wrestle with such subjects as deer, bear, elk, or buffalo. These general directions apply to the skinning of all terrestrial quadrupeds up to the size of a setter dog, and the preservation of their skins in a mountable condition.
Measurements.—The following are the most valuable measurements to take of a small mammal.