to case your specimens up as soon
as practicable, or to keep them always in full light, not poking them
away in obscure corners, which the Tineidae and other pests
love--hating light as the Father of Evil is said to hate holy water.

My Preservative formula is as follows:

No. 4.--Brown's (Non poisonous) Preservative Soap.

Whiting or chalk, 2.5 lb.

Chloride of lime, 2 oz.

Soft soap, 1 lb.

Tincture of musk, 1 oz.

Boil together the whiting and the soap with about a pint of water;
then stir in the chloride of lime (previously finely pounded) while
the mixture is hot; if this point is not attended to, the mixture will
not work smoothly; when nearly cool, stir in the tincture of musk.
This will about fill a 6 lb. Australian meat tin. Caution: It is not
necessary to hold the mouth over the mixture while hot, as chlorine is
then rapidly evolved. This mixture has stood the test of work and
time, and I therefore confidently bring it to the notice of the public
as completely superseding the arsenical paste or soap for small
mammals and all birds; indeed, numbers of persons, totally unknown to
me, have written to me about its advantages.

One says: "I have followed the bird-stuffing now for several years in
connection with another trade, but I have never seen anything to touch
it before. I have quite given up arsenic, and can get on fine without
it, and only wish that I had known the grand secret before."

Another: "Your recipe for preservative unction (non-poisonous) is
simply invaluable to taxidermists. I have been trying for a long time
to make a non-poisonous unction, but never fairly succeeded; always
had a doubt as to their efficacy, prejudice had something to do with
it."

A third says: "I have tried your recipe, and am well satisfied of its
qualities for preserving skins, having tried Swainson's, and
Becoeur's, and yours, and after a twelvemonth have relaxed the skins,
and give my favour to yours as a toughener of the skin."

None of the above correspondents are known tome, and their opinion was
sent unasked. Those people I do know who are using it are perfectly
satisfied, as I myself am after a constant use of it for the past
seven years. I find that skins dressed by it are not "burned," as some
people may think, but relax most perfectly after a lapse of years by
any method, even by the water process spoken of hereafter. I do not
think it any better or worse than t