The sportsman's handbook to collecting, preserving, and setting-up trophies & specimens : together with a guide to the hunting grounds of the world / by Rowland Ward.

  • Ward, Rowland, 1848?-1912.
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The sportsman's handbook to collecting, preserving, and setting-up trophies & specimens : together with a guide to the hunting grounds of the world / by Rowland Ward. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    130/348 (page 98)
    the Dermestes ; and in like manner 1 have received skulls in London that have been imperfectly cleaned of flesh, from which I have shaken hundreds upon hundreds of fattened lively specimens. I gave them the turpentine they should have had when the specimens were packed. Not only skins, but all skulls and horns should be saturated with turpentine before they are shipped to England; every atom of flesh being removed from the skulls. Sometimes the insects will recover activity after the milder influence of benzine ; but the process described above is quite sufficient for pachyderms. All skins should be well looked after at night, as during the darkness, animals of various kinds, including half-starved village dogs, frequently lurk about a camp, and nothing comes amiss to their hungry maws. Immersion in Spirit.—A few words must be devoted to this mode of preservation, for there is absolute necessity that it should be properly carried out. Either fishes or reptiles, or even birds, that may be sent home in spirits, should be treated in the following manner: First provide a tub, or other con- venient vessel, full of the spirit, wherein the specimens can be put as a preliminary measure, so that the mucus, water, etc., may be drawn out of them. Before placing them in this, a moderate incision should be made, with as little disturbance as possible, in the belly, so that the spirit may permeate all parts. Keep the specimens in this spirit from a week to ten days, then transfer them to fresh spirit, and let them remain there for about two weeks more, before final removal to the vessel or vessels of spirit in which they are to be packed for the remainder of the journey. Reptiles, being less watery than fish, generally require only one change. The first tub of spirit may be used for more