that the reason I have copied it is that I have met
with it in more books than one, and I wish therefore to call special
attention to it, that it may be labelled "Dangerous," and that anyone
using it will do so at his peril. Fancy shaking arsenic up in a sieve,
and afterwards dusting it in con amore! Really, if people will use
poisons, and others put themselves to considerable pains to invent the
most deadly compounds for them, is it not criminal carelessness that
such things should be published without a word of warning as to their
character or effects?

Powders, as a rule, being made of astringents, dry the skin too
quickly (especially if a bird is being operated on) to perfectly shape
the specimen. As they are useful, however, to fill up and quickly dry
cavities in the wings, and such like, of large birds, etc, and in some
cases even to prepare a skin for future stuffing, I will give a powder
of my own composition, the chief point of merit of which consists in
its being harmless to the user, and also that it has been tried on a
large bird's skin, which it so effectually preserved and toughened
that, eighteen months afterwards, it was relaxed and stuffed up better
than the usual run of made skins:

No. 8.--Browne's Preservative Powder.

Pure tannin, 1 oz.

Red pepper, 1 oz.

Camphor, 1 oz.

Burnt alum, 8 oz.

Pound and thoroughly mix, and keep in stoppered bottles or canisters.

The foregoing preparation, though perfectly efficient for small
mammals (say up to squirrel size) and for birds, is not sufficiently
strong to penetrate the skin and thoroughly fix the hair of the larger
mammals. For this purpose the older taxidermists used a wash or
powder, composed of equal parts of alum and nitre (saltpetre). This
had the double disadvantage of rendering the specimen cured by its aid
almost dripping with humidity in damp weather, and efflorescing with
the double salts around the eyes and mouth in dry weather. Alum alone
was frequently used by those unaware of its peculiar property of
deliquescing in heat as well as in humidity.

I have, I believe, at last succeeded in arranging the proper
proportions, and in substituting, for the worse than useless crude
alum, the alum ustum or burnt alum, which is not affected by moisture
(at least to any appreciable extent). The proportions are:

No. 9.--Browne's Preservative Powder for Skins of Mammals.

Burnt alum, 1 lb.