urb the scales underneath. A
considerable amount of scraping, coaxing, and undercutting will have
to be done here.

Having well freed the fins of flesh, turn your attention to the head:
make a cut along the side of the under jaw, then cut away the gills at
their top and bottom attachments and pull them out, if you do not wish
them ultimately to show. When this is done you will become aware that
there is still remaining a piece of the vertebra leading up into the
head; take the large knife and chop it to the underneath; it will then
lift up, exposing what little brain the fish has. Cut this piece off
before it enters the palate; and then, by clearing away a little
flesh, you come to the eye, which take hold of with your finger and
pull out. You will now see several small cavities filled with flesh
running up to the sides of the face, cheeks, etc.

The scraper or undercutting knife will now come into use, and small
pieces of flesh must be laboriously cleared out. After this tool has
well loosened and partly cut away the intervening flesh, the fingers
may be advantageously used to work with, by being pushed in at the
orbits of the eyes, to pull out the loose pieces of flesh. (Note that,
in doing this, it is as well to be careful not to cut your fingers
with the edges of the small bones of the head, nor with the palatal or
lingual teeth.)

The operator must not forget during work to keep the fins well damped,
otherwise they rapidly dry and split, as I have before observed.

Running between and from the pectoral fins a thick, fleshy process
continues right up underneath the jaw. As the included flesh is
contained in a remarkably thin silvery skin, extraordinary care is
necessary in freeing this from the flesh, so the knife, the scraper,
and the fingers will all have to come into play. It is held at the
extreme end under the jaw by a thin bone, which, though skinned to its
under part, must not be cut away, but left slightly attached.

A little sand at this stage is useful to rub the fingers in, to
prevent them slipping, when pulling out small pieces of flesh. The
pectoral fins are, of all, the most awkwardly situated to skin out,
coming, as they do, at the bottom of the pectoral process, and they
must be left with their bones attached, and the flesh be scraped away
from between the two fins, and underneath each one, until nothing
remains. Carefully attend to the latter part of these instructions, or
the final result wil