The following directions were written from the mounting of a large lobster, but apply equally to all crustaceans large enough to be stuffed.

1. Remove the shell of the back (carapax) in one piece, by cutting under its lower edges, and with steel bone-scrapers clean out all the flesh from the body and tail.

2. Take a long, stiff wire (about No. 10 for a lobster), flatten it out at one end, and bend up a quarter of an inch of it, to form a scraper with a sharp chisel edge. Insert this in the legs (or "walking feet"), one by one, and clean out all the flesh they contain, quite to their tips. With a strong syringe inject water into each leg to thoroughly wash out the inside.

3. Take off the "movable claw" from the "big pincer," also make a hole in the joint at A (Plate XV.), and through these two openings remove all the flesh from the large claws, and syringe them out.

4. Having thoroughly cleaned the specimen, either soak it in some liquid poison, such as arsenic water (the easiest to prepare—by dissolving arsenic in boiling water), or a corrosive sublimate solution, or else poison it by injecting diluted arsenical soap into the legs, claws, and body with a syringe.

5. Insert in each leg and claw a soft wire of zinc, galvanized iron, or brass, and bend the end in the body at very nearly a right angle (B-B). In large specimens the wire should be wrapped smoothly with a little tow, so that the claws will not be loose upon it.

6. Insert a wire in each feeler as far up as possible, and let the lower end extend well down into the body. To hold the specimen on its pedestal, take another wire, as long as the entire specimen from head to tail, pass one end of it down through the centre of the body, bend the wire down at a right angle, and in the same manner pass the other end down through the middle abdominal segment. The ends are to pass through the pedestal and be clinched below.

7. The claws need not be stuffed.

8. When all the various members have been wired, bend all the inner ends of the wires down in the body, and pour in a lot of plaster Paris, which, as soon as it hardens will hold all the wires in place.

9. Stuff the cavity of the abdominal segments with tow, put what filling is necessary into the thorax, then put the shell back in its place and glue it fast all around the edges.

10. Replace the movable claws, and with glue and cotton fasten them firmly where they belong.

11. Put a wire around the end of each claw to hold it down, or, what is better still, wire it down from the under side in such a way that the wire will not be visible.

12. When the specimen is dry and its colors have partly faded out, procure a fresh specimen of the same species, and with your oil colors paint the shell carefully and artistically from your model. Learn to blend the colors together as nature does in such objects, softening all the lines. When the paint is dry, if the specimen has a dead, opaque appearance, give its surface both lustre and transparency by applying a thin coat of white varnish and turpentine.