34 



placed at the bottom of the bundle, making room on top for the 

 next day's collection. A tin collecting-box is very convenient ; 

 plants may be preserved for two or three days in one if kept damp 

 and cool. It is also convenient in collecting land-shells, which is 

 generally considered part of a botanist's duty. A collector should 

 also always be provided with plenty of ready-made seed-papers, not 

 only for preserving seeds, but mosses and minute plants. Many 

 seeds and fruits cannot be put in the herbarium, particularly if of a 

 succulent nature, causing mouldiness, and others form irregularities 

 and inequalities in the papers, thus breaking specimens and causing 

 small ones and seeds to drop out. Fruits of this kind should be 

 numbered to correspond with the specimen, and kept in the saddle- 

 bags, or some such place. It is necessary, in order to make good 

 specimens, to avoid heavy pressure and keep the papers well dried, 

 otherwise they get mouldy, turn black, or decay. 



The seeds and fruits of plants should be procured whenever 

 practicable, and slowly dried. These will often serve to reproduce 

 a species otherwise not transportable or capable of preservation. 



On board ship, it is all-important to keep the collections from 

 getting wet with salt water. The papers can generally be dried at 

 the galley. The whole herbarium should be exposed to the sun as 

 often as possible, and frequently examined, and the mould brushed 

 off with a feather or camel-hair pencil. 



In collecting algae, corallines, or the branched, horny, or cal- 

 careous corals, care should be taken to bring away the entire 

 specimen with its base or root. The coarser kinds may be dried 

 in the air (but not exposed to too powerful a sun), turning them 

 from time to time. These should not be washed in fresh water, 

 if to be sent any distance. The more delicate species should be 

 brought home in salt water, and washed carefully in fresh, then 

 transferred to a shallow basin of clean fresh water, and floated out. 

 A piece of white paper of proper size is then slipped underneath, 

 and raised gently out of the water with the specimen on its upper 

 surface. After finally adjusting the branches with a sharp point 

 or brush, the different sheets of specimens are to be arranged be- 

 tween blotters of bibulous paper and cotton cloth, and subjected 

 to gentle pressure. These blotters must be frequently changed 

 till the specimens are dry. 



