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VI.— MR. FRED ENOCK^S METHOD OF MOUNTING 

 HEADS OF INSECTS WITHOUT PRESSURE. 



By The Rev. J. S. Peatt. 



(Bead April 20, 1921.) 



Some thirty years ago Mr. Enock explained to me his method of 

 mounting insects' heads without pressure, asking me to keep the 

 secret to myself, and, so far as I know, and I knew him very well, 

 he never confided the secret to anyone else. He told me that 

 the first idea was given him by seeing some of the Rev. Thorn- 

 ton's beautiful mounts which were evidently prepared without 

 pressure. 



For eight years he worked at his method before being satisfied, 

 every slide not perfect being destroyed, for he would never have a 

 second best. But now that he is gone, leaving no one to carry on 

 his work, and, so far as I am able to learn, there being no one who 

 has any pecuniary interest in his method of mounting, it seemed 

 to me a pity that science should lose his beautiful discovery. 



Therefore, after much thought and consultation with frienfls, 

 I approached the Royal Microscopical Society and asked them to 

 be .the custodians of Mr. Enock's method. 



The President has suggested that I should write a paper for 

 publication in the Society's Journal, giving an outline of the 

 process, and for that purpose Colonel Carrick Freeman, M.D., has 

 most kindly drawn for me some illustrations. These are not to 

 scale. 



The problem is — how to get, and keep, the tongue of, say, a 

 wasp or bee protruded, and the various mouth organs laid out, so 

 as to be easily seen in their entirety, and above all, to be as far as 

 possible in the same plane. 



For this purpose we require a few special tools. 



A small mounting block is* prepared, built up with a small 

 piece of sheet glass, a fairly thin slice of mounting cork, and a 

 piece of white note paper, of equal size — 1 inch by f inch — and 

 l)Ound together at each end with white thread, the cork being in 

 the middle, fig. 1. The head is set out on the paper in the space 

 between the threads. 



A couple of special pins must also be prepared as follows. 

 Towards one side of a small block of cork, slightly less than 

 I inch square, a finest 1-inch entomological pin is thrust through 



