MARINE COLLECTING. 41 



of bottom, date, etc. The smaller specimens should be 

 placed in homoeopathic vials and not mixed with larger forms. 

 For larger forms the common glass fruit jars are convenient, 

 both for collecting and as storage jars. 



For the majority of marine forms, alcohol is the best pre- 

 servative. The specimen should be first placed in weak spirit 

 and after a few hours transferred to stronger and this process 

 again repeated. By this the water is, gradually extracted and all 

 undue contraction of tissues avoided. Crustacea and mollusks 

 intended for dissection should have the shell cut or cracked 

 before placing in alcohol so that the spirit may readily .pene- 

 trate the soft parts which otherwise would rapidly decay. 



Medusae and some other forms are not readily preserved 

 without great distortion, owing to the extremely large per- 

 centage of water in their composition. Various processes 

 and preparations have been employed, but success is as much 

 the result of accident as of any especial skill or of any superior 

 merit in the preservative. Possibly the best method is to 

 place the jelly-fish for a short time in a one-tenth to one- 

 twentieth per cent solution of osmic acid, and then transfer 

 to fifty per cent alcohol and after a few days place in sixty 

 per cent spirit. Another method is to employ a solution of 

 bay salt of a specific gravity of 1.148, to each quart of which 

 two ounces of alum have been added. The specimen is 

 daily changed to a fresh portion of the solution for a week. 

 Methylated spirit, 30 under proof, with forty drops of creosote 

 to the quart has also been recommended. 



It is frequently desirable to preserve animals in their ex- 

 panded condition. So far as the writer is aware no method 

 3* 



