242 Rhodora [OCTOBER 
phide treatment, especially in packages which are for any reason to be 
stored some months without opening. 
Early in our -battle with insects, it was felt that they would find a 
particular stronghold in what is known as the * bundle-room ", where 
duplicates, unworked collections, etc., are kept, often for considerable 
periods, in separate packages. Accordingly, special precautions were 
taken with this room. All material was removed from it and the 
floors, standing woodwork and shelves were painted over with a 
nearly saturated alcoholic solution of corrosive sublimate — a treat- 
ment not to be recommended where woodwork is highly finished or 
its appearance a matter of consequence. This was done with the idea 
of sterilizing as far as possible any accumulations of organic dust, 
which might have lodged in the cracks of the woodwork in a manner 
to form food for insects. The packages were then brought back to 
this room only after a fumigation of at least forty-eight hours in the 
vapor of carbon bisulphide. Each package, tied in a preliminary 
manner, received a handful of flake naphthalin well sprinkled in among 
its sheets and was then securely wrapped in stout manila paper, tied, 
tagged, and placed on the sterilized shelves. This was done some 
years ago and the results have been most satisfactory. In fact, I am 
not aware that a live insect has been detected in the bundle-room 
since. 
,Even after the efficiency of these methods had thus been amply 
demonstrated, there was much left to be desired. Fumigation with 
carbon bisulphide is of necessity an annoying process from the 
extremely disagreeable and penetrating odor ; and even if the cans or 
tanks, in which the fumigation is effected, are kept at a distance from 
the main rooms of the herbarium, the sheets retain for some days the 
odor, which is scarcely less disagreeable as it becomes fainter. The 
farther away the fumigating tanks are kept, the greater the labor of 
transporting the thousands of packages of herbarium sheets from the 
cases to the tanks and back again. ‘To avoid the wear and tear 
upon the specimens, as well as to save much time and trouble, the 
attempt was made to fumigate the herbarium sheets directly in the 
wooden cases, where they are kept. ‘This, however, proved a failure. 
Although about two pounds of the sulphide was used in a tightly 
closing twenty-six pigeon hole case and fumigation prolonged forty 
eight hours, it was found that living larvae of the herbarium beetle, 
which had been previously inserted among sheets in the case, although 
