CHAPTER VI. 



THE COLLECTION OF OBJECTS. 



IT has been the author's endeavour to persuade the student 

 to take up some special branch of study with the aid of the 

 microscope, and with this end in view the following chapter 

 has been written, showing where certain objects are to be 

 found, what apparatus is requisite for their collection, what 

 to collect, how to collect, and when gathered, how to 

 preserve them for future examination under the micro- 

 scope. 



Collectors of experience will not require to be informed 

 on many of these points, and therefore to make the chapter 

 interesting to more than the mere student a list of works 

 treating on each subject has been appended, and also the 

 names of several species under each heading in order that 

 the possessor of a microscope may know what slides to 

 purchase should he desire to fill a cabinet in that manner. 



The author would strongly advise the young student to 

 refrain from flitting hither and thither over the whole range 

 of microscopical objects. It is not enough to be able to 

 name a few rotifers or rare diatoms, such knowledge is of 

 the shallowest kind ; but if he sets himself to work to study 

 the life-history of some hitherto obscure organism, or the 

 anatomy of an insect, the outward form of which he is alone 

 familiar with, he may rely upon it, he will be useful in his 

 generation. 



Most collectors have their own method of gathering 

 specimens, and are very conservative on this point, but the 



