4 
varied soil and numerous woods will doubtless yield great 
results to the efforts of a zealous collector. Those of our 
members living in the country are earnestly solicited to 
preserve and forward to our Curators any specimens that 
may fall in their way. Lepidoptera may be captured in 
pill-boxes and killed by means of a few drops of Chloroform. 
Coleoptera and other orders should be put into a bottle in 
which has been previously placed a small quantity of 
bruised laurel leaves, the prussic acid contained in the 
leaves not only very quickly killing the Insects, but also 
preserving them fresh, and in a state for setting for a 
considerable length of time. 
ORNITHOLOGICAL COLLECTION. 
When the repairs of the Museum were brought to a close, 
the room containing the collection underwent a thorough 
cleaning, and the specimens were taken out, examined, 
carefully cleaned, and returned to the cases. The windows 
of the rooms, the approaches to which were awkwardly 
blocked up with cases, were relieved of their obstructions, 
the specimens which were in these cases being transported 
to their proper places in the series to which they respectively 
belonged. But the most important change which has been 
made in this department, is the separation of the British 
from the Exotic species. In nearly all the extensive 
Natural History Museums in Europe the native species 
are now fostered as a distinct collection. Such has lately 
been the case in our National Museum, and whereas the 
observer had before this change to seek laboriously through 
thousands of birds, from every clime, for the isolated 
specimens which had formed the collectiop of some 
celebrated Naturalist,—as for instance that of Colonel 
Montague,—he may now sce them all placed side by side 
in the gallery devoted to British Zoology. And with them 
