Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/491



who has a museum, however small, should be familiar with the mode of preparing skeletons. I can only indicate the outlines of the process, for in this, as in every other part of the work of making anatomical preparations, a few practical lessons from a person already an adept, and a little experience and observation, will do more than any description. When the principles are known, the details can be carried out with such modifications and improvements for each individual case as the skill and ingenuity of the operator can suggest. With regard to museum specimens generally, the question is frequently asked how such or such a preparation is made, and an answer is expected, in a few words, which will enable the questioner to do the same himself This is much as if a novice who had never handled a brush were to ask an artist how he had painted his picture, and expect that a few simple directions would put him on a level with the master. Preparation-making is an art which can only be acquired by labour and perseverance, superadded to some natural qualifications not possessed in an equal degree by all.

To return to the bones, as in many respects the simplest kind of preparations. There is a popular notion that skeletons are made by putting animals into ant-hills. So I have been told over and over again ever since I was a child. I must, however, say that