. 
146 
live! or if you must have them for future study 
use alcohol and preserve them right. 
First wash your victim clean, make careful 
notes of its colors, for alcohol often fades these, 
then place it in 65 percent alcohol for two days 
when it may be moved to. spirits of greater 
This change is to prevent a too great 
It is not. sufficient to 
strength. 
shrinking of the tissues, 
simply immerse the specimen in alcohol, the 
body cavities should also be filled wih it by 
means of a hypodermic syringe. 
T once had to take charge of a large speci- 
men where no hypodermic syringe and no alco- 
hol was to be had. My substitute for alcohol 
was whiskey bought at the first best saloon, 
Dipping a common family rubber syringe in 
a bottle of this and inserting a tube down the 
specimen’s throat I pumped the body cavity full 
of whiskey and then placed the reptile in a jar 
filled with the liquor. It was a considerable 
time before I transfered the specimen to full 
strength alcohol, but it kept well. The 
most satisfactory method of killing specimens 
that are to be preserved is by drowning them 
in alcohol or chloroform, 
jar or wide mouthed bottle pour in the liquid 
until the vessel is entirely filled then close 
tightly. 
When the specimen has been in alcohol long 
enough to harden the tissues it may be taken 
out for examination, and if it is desirable, for 
convenience of transportation or other reasons, 
to keep it out of the jar for several days it may 
be wrapped in cotton that has been saturated 
with alcohol and there will be no danger of 
Put them in a_ glass 
injury. F 
The alcohol is expensive, to be sure, but 
the labor of skinning and stuffing is saved and 
the whole specimen is superior to the mounted 
skin in every way. 
New questions regarding anatomy and con- 
cerning the value of various organs in classifi- 
cation arise now and then and if you area 
naturalist you are a progressive man and your 
specimens many or few, should be useful to you 
in making the investigations necessary to keep 
up with the times. For example the presence 
THE OREGON NATURALIST. 
or absence of a rudimentary right lung is now 
regarded as of considerable importance, and 
when present it is thought desirable to know its 
size and condition and the structure of the bron- 
chial foramen which connects it with the trachea 
The structure of the hemipenis is of such im- 
portance in classification that Prof. Cope says 
no one can be sure of the affinity of a snake 
When 
ever such topics as these come up for discussion 
until he has examined its hemipenis. 
the possession of the finest mounted snake skin 
mm the world will prove anything but  sat- 
i: factory. % 
ANGUS GAINES. 
Vincennes, Indiana. 
’ 
MEXICAN DANCING BEANS. 
This is a title given to the seed vessels of 
some plant but it is partly a misnomer as they 
do not look at all like beans though they do 
tumble about in a lively style. Here is an at- 
tempt to picture them, 
No, I is an angular view, No, 2 has the glo- 
bose part presented to you while No. 3 is Isup- 
pose the arrangement of the capsules around 
the stem of the plant. On opening one of 
them a fat white naked (that is without hairs) 
larva makes your acquaintance it is the contor- 
tions of this little creature that is the cause of 
