deprecated. I reflected. Here was a specimen delivered at my very door,
nay, into the very precincts of my laboratory. Why should I destroy it?
Could I not turn it to some useful account in the advancement of
science?

"I turned this question over at length. Here was a specimen. But a
specimen of what? I am no mere curio-monger, no collector of frivolous
and unmeaning trifles. A specimen must illustrate some truth. Now what
truth did this specimen illustrate? The question, thus stated, brought
forth its own answer in a flash.

"Criminal anthropology is practically an unillustrated science. A few
paltry photographs, a few mouldering skulls of forgotten delinquents
(such as that of Charlotte Corday), form the entire material on which
criminal anthropologists base their unsatisfactory generalizations. But
here was a really authentic specimen with a traceable life-history. It
ought not to be lost to science. And it should not be.

"Presently my thoughts took a new turn. I had been deeply interested in
the account that I had read of the ingenious method by which the
Mundurucús used to preserve the heads of their slain enemies. The book
was unfortunately still in the museum, but I had read the account
through, and now recalled it. The Mundurucú warrior, when he had killed
an enemy, cut off his head with a broad bamboo knife and proceeded to
preserve it thus: First he soaked it for a time in some non-oxidizable
vegetable oil; then he extracted the bone and the bulk of the muscles
somewhat as a bird-stuffer extracts the body from the skin. He then
filled up the cavity with hot pebbles and hung the preparation up to
dry.