otherwise it will assuredly "sweat,"
and the hair come off in such places.

The skin may now be rolled or folded together for travelling, but the
next day, when settled in camp, it must be dressed again--twice will
be quite sufficient for any but the thickest or most greasy skins;
after that it must be exposed day by day to the sun and air, taking
care meanwhile to guard it against all possible enemies. Treated in
this manner, it has no "nature" in it, but is "as stiff as a board;"
before this happens, however, it will be advisable to roll it, unless
you have plenty of space at disposal on the floor of a travelling
waggon, etc, in which case it may be folded to fit. A folded skin is,
however, worse to treat, subsequently, than a rolled one.

Valuable skins should be, when practicable, sprinkled with insect
powder, turpentine, or pepper, and sewn up in sacking until they can
be tanned, or made into soft leather, by any one of the processes
previously described. If time is no object the skin may, after the
first rubbing-in of the preservative, be stretched by the
old-fashioned method of "pegging out," or by the more efficient
professional "frame," made of four bars of wood, to which the specimen
is "laced," or sometimes made of bars of wood and stout sacking,
adjustable by means of wood screws, which open the bars and stretch
the attached skin in a proper manner to the required size.

When alum, etc, cannot be obtained, recourse must be had to common
salt, which is generally procurable in any part of the world; a strong
--almost a saturated--solution with water must be made of this in a
tub, and the skin placed in it. If possible, change the liquor after a
few days and add fresh; head the tub up tightly and the skin will keep
many years. I received the skin of a polar bear, sent from the Arctic
Regions to Leicester for the Town Museum, simply flayed and pickled in
this manner, and after a lapse of two years it was examined, and found
to be perfectly sweet and firm--quite fit for mounting when
opportunity served.

Of course, these salted subjects are terrible nuisances either to
mount or to treat as flat skins, having to go through many processes
to rid them of the salt which pervades them. The first process is
thorough washing and steeping in water, constantly changed; after that
experience alone determines the treatment to be pursued. If alum were
mixed with rough salt in the proportion of two parts of the former to