The risk of injury by putrefaction during drying is diminished by the use of antiseptics. Solutions of arsenic have been frequently used for this purpose, and many of the dried Indian kips are of what are known as “arsenic cures,” although the writer has never been able to detect arsenic in any which he has examined, and its use seems by no means general. The arsenious acid is usually dissolved in soda solutions. Unless used pretty freely it has little antiseptic effect, but is useful in preventing the attacks of insects, which are often very destructive. The larva of a small beetle, _Dermestes vulpinus_, frequently devours the whole tissue of patches of the hide, leaving only the epidermis. It may be well here to say a few words about the injuries and defects to which hides and skins are liable, although some of them are not strictly due to the cure. The most serious, and yet preventable injury is that due to butchers’ cuts. As the value of the hide bears only a small proportion to that of the meat, many butchers do their work extremely carelessly, and this is encouraged by the loose classification of “damaged hides” in some markets. There is also an idea that the appearance of the meat is improved by a thin layer of the white skin-tissue being left on it, and for this reason as well as mere carelessness, butchers frequently score the flanks of the hide with shallow cuts which greatly diminish its value. The “packer hides” of the United States, and the products of the large saladeros or slaughtering (“salting”) establishments of South America, such as Liebig’s, show what can be done by skilled work in this respect. In the United States, much of the flaying is done by means of a wooden cleaver, instead of a sharp knife. Another method to some extent in use, and which may be recommended for calf and sheep skins, is to inflate the carcase before skinning, with air from a compressing syringe, which tears the connecting tissue between the skin and the body, and renders flaying much easier. Brands are a great source of damage to hides, but where cattle roam at large on unfenced plains, as on the prairies of Texas and the Pampas of South America, it seems indispensable for the recognition of ownership; no other mode of marking being sufficiently permanent and conspicuous. It is unfortunate, that as the animals crowd together, and cannot be closely approached, it is necessary that the brands should not only be large, but placed on the most valuable part of the hide. Generally on the Pampas an effort is made to keep them on one side only, so that in South American hides it is possible to select clear and branded sides. In the United States much land is now fenced with barbed wire, which while it obviates the necessity of branding, introduces another evil in the form of “barbed wire scratches,” which are frequently troublesome in “packer hides.”