The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1897-03-28
rRopH1rs or :
Hides Improperly Trcated-BiE Elk Horns Sup
Piled 20 Hunters By New York Dealers.

Piled 20 Hunters BY View YORK bentofs'
A common cause Of disappointment among
sportsmen arises from their inability to have
their trophies mounted as they hoped. This
happens because the trophies were not properly
treated Immediately after the game was slain.
1--WE got a case Of skins from Labrador once
a taxidermist said. at was about four feet
high by fvo square. 1t was full OF caribou
parts-horns, skulls, hoofs, legs, and skins-and
all were worthless. Hero were trophies that
money could not have purchased spoiled because
the owner had neglected to dress his skins a lit
tie before sending them to us. II that man had
Just taken some alum and twice as much com.
mon salt and rubbed tho stun into tho skins,
and then hung them up In some shady place
away from the camp fire, he would have had as
fine a collection of caribou heads as ono could
find in a week among sportsmen's relics.
"Then there are men who take too much care
OF their skins. A man cam into our place
last fall with two bearskins rolled up In a bun
die. / began to unroll them, and It was just like
rolling q cracker up. The skins broke and
cracked all to pieces, and nothing in the world
could have saved them. That man had told his
guides to take the utmost care Of the skins. He
had rubbed salt into them and alum, too. Then
the guides had hung them up before tho fire to
dry and had dried the life out of them. The
skins would have been all right had they been
suspended from a tree In the shade and stretched
enough to get the kinks out.
"A few days ago wo got eight fox skins from
o man down in South Carolina. They all looked
alike and appeared to be all right. We put them
into the tan and three Of them went to pieces.
likely the skins had been tackled upon a barn.
The three may have happened to hang In tho
s sSem ionf Tots t Of me 1h San osh Skins a out On enG The s sSnaS
sure to ruin, a hide in warm days or warm
selected II the hides are. to be treated In that
way at all, and they should DO we'll rubbed with
'" awe Sna do "' " so 90 pe sraa Vim in elk horns, and what
do you thinkf Most Of the elk are sent to regions
where elk were once numerous. snt are now
S YorS. buy Fh Biz h hsSas for fro% s4S SG tn SIS Is e Ss%
and AXE them to the game regions: The sports,
takes him out hunting. The region, SO far as
game Is concerned, is pretty well played out.
Possibly, the sportsman gets a shot; more likely
Disguised. he goes Into the parlor and sees over
the, mantel q forty.lnch spread of elk antlers
guide to tell about them. The biggest pair has
a history a yard long, and the sportsman can
T finest otb ssaf heads snS s bnv Toa sto afas IN ni pfop saf oeai To-
the size of their horns, except the smallest,
which has the biggest story of all attached to 1t.
two or three heads, paying tho guide three or
four times as much for them as the guide had
paid down on William street, New York, where
the taXidermists hold out.
More big heads have come in this fall than
we ever knew of before. l saw thirty-lve Michi-
gan deer in one batch, not one Of which weighed
less than 200 pounds, and, one was a 400-pound
deer. I knew they had been killed by market
hunters, because they had been shot in the head.
Big moose heads come from Maine and the West.
and a couple OF weeks ago we got q wildcat with
a forty.four.inch hide and a head like a pump
kin. Some bully good bearskins have come in,
too. II folks would skin the heads of their game,
taking care about the eyes and lips, 1t would be
lots easier for us to save the skin on them
when they are mounted, but all taxidermists
keep a supply of hides of heads, 80 II a man
comes in with just a pair Of tho horns of a deer
we can TT out tho rest Of it."