THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



balsam. With fine forceps lift the dissections from the clearing fluid and 

 arrange them in the drop in approximately the order you wish to preserve. 

 If necessary apply a little more balsam, then put on a clean cover-glass, 

 pressing it lightly into place. Should too little balsam have been used 

 more may be run in under the edge of the cover by capillary attraction, 

 while any surplus should be left on the slide until dry. Care should be 

 taken to select parts of about the same thickness for each mount, since 

 thick objects like mandibles sometimes hold the cover so far off from 

 smaller parts that these latter will twist and turn before the balsam hardens 

 enough to hold them in place. If it is desired to support the cover in any 

 place, to keep it from rocking out of level, small pieces of glass may be 

 employed, since they are not conspicuous among the dissections. Any 

 disarrangement of the objects may be corrected by inserting a very fine 

 pin under the cover-glass and moving them into the required positions. 

 When everything is satisfactorily placed, set the slide away in some safe 

 spot, where it will lie flat until the balsam hardens. This hardening may 

 be hastened by gentle heat, such as is afforded by a radiator, but the 

 balsam is likely to become discoloured if allowed to get too warm. The 

 process of hardening may not be completed before several weeks, but 

 when it is satisfactorily finished the surplus may be scraped off with a sharp 

 knife and the slide carefully washed with acohol applied on a rag. If this 

 leaves a misty scum, breathe on the glass and polish with a soft cloth, 

 taking care not to tear off the cover-glass and the mount. In final storage 

 the slides should always lie flat, never set them on edge. The manner of 

 libelling may be left to personal taste, but a convenient method is to paste 

 a square of gummed paper on one end of the slide, writing thereon the 

 necessary data. 



Dr. William Morton Wheeler, who, during the past summer, 

 accepted the professorship of Economic Entomology in Harvard Uni- 

 versity, has recently been appointed honorary Curator of social insects in 

 the American Museum of Natural History, where, until the present year, 

 he had been Curator of the Department of Invertebrate Zoology since 

 1902. At the close of his term of service at the Museum, he presented to 

 the institution his entire collection of Formicidse — the result of many years 

 of earnest effort and study — a gift of such value as to make the Museum 

 the possessor of the finest collection of its kind in America, and one of 

 the three largest in the world. — Science. 



