46 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



A collection of these spiders was exhibited, together with 

 drawings of the specific characters. 



Dr. Marx stated that the group included many species, and 

 was a very difficult one to classify, as there were good charac 

 ters only in the male sex. 



Mr. Schwarz said that the distinctive male characters were 

 constantly being used to distinguish species in other groups 

 of insects where the females could not be separated. 



Mr. Schwarz then read the following paper : 



LABELING SPECIMENS. 



BY E. A. SCHWARZ. 



Without a collection valuable observations on insects can no 

 doubt be made, but they will always remain isolated and of 

 limited value without the means for determination and com 

 parison afforded by a collection. A good and serviceable col 

 lection, however, does not consist merely of an accumulation 

 and arrangement of specimens in boxes or vials, but also of 

 the record to be attached in some way to the specimen, and 

 which is to inform us regarding the name of the insect, the 

 locality, mode of life, authority for determination, etc. in 

 short, everything that may belong to the history and natural 

 history of the specimen. 



This information can be recorded and made available for 

 practical purposes by the following systems : ist. By numbers 

 attached to the specimens, and which refer to notes kept and 

 arranged in various ways ; 2nd. By written or printed labels 

 attached to the specimens ; 3rd. By a combination of these 

 two systems. 



For an economic or biological collection the labeling system 

 alone is not practicable ; for the information derived from the 

 study and observation of the life-history and economy of a 

 single species or specimen usually covers so much ground that 

 it cannot be written on one or several labels attached to the 

 specimen in the collection. A numbering system is here in 

 dispensable, or, still better, a combination of the two systems, 

 since certain shorter information, e.g., locality, date of cap 

 ture or breeding, etc., can conveniently be written on labels 

 attached to the specimen. 



A systematic collection kept in alcohol, e. g., a collection of 

 Arachnida, is evidently well adapted to the labeling system ; 

 for the vials are almost always of a size sufficient to allow the 



