22 PREPARATION OF SPECIMENS FOR STUDY. 



according to their bulk, and each drawer should bear a 

 label indicating its contents. The expense of such a 

 cabinet would be of course according to the elegance 

 of its material and finish ; the main object to be se- 

 cured is tight fitting of the drawers. 



Though no complete treatise on the collecting and 

 preparing of specimens is here necessary, a few hints 

 to intending collectors of little experience may well be 

 given. Birds may be trapped or snared, but are almost 

 always shot. The choice of a gun is not easy, and 

 must depend largely upon the collector's means, if not 

 also upon his individual preference. The modern 

 double-barrelled breech-loader is unquestionably the 

 best arm for general purposes ; but a good reliable arm 

 of this kind is necessarily expensive, and many col- 

 lectors make use of cane-guns, or even of a kind of 

 pistol now extensively manufactured, to which a skel- 

 eton stock may be fitted if desired. Such arms are 

 very cheap, perfectly safe, and become quite effective 

 in the hands of a person skilled in their use. What- 

 ever weapon be selected, it should be a breech-loader, 

 and only fixed ammunition, in metallic or paper car- 

 tridges, should be employed. Muzzle-loading fire- 

 arms are not to be thought of for a moment ; they are 

 anachronisms. Most of the collector's shooting is to 

 be done with the finest shot that can be secured, in 

 order to injure the specimens as little as possible. 

 Nearly all inexperienced persons use too much shot, 

 of too large size. But since the collector will require 

 to secure large as well as small birds, and at long as 

 well as short range, he should provide himself with an 

 assortment of cartridges, loaded with shot of several dif- 

 ferent sizes. Three-fourths of the cartridges, at least, 



