INTRODUCTION. xxh 



but, too much stress cannot be laid upon the import- 

 ance the absolute necessity, in fact of carefully 

 recording the locality where each species is found ; 

 this should be done on the spot, and not left to 

 memory, in legible writing on the lid of the boxes, or 

 on a label placed with the specimens, and it is advis- 

 able to add the date. 



On his return home the collector should kill the 

 animals as speedily as possible, and not keep them 

 huddled together, alive, in close boxes for one moment 

 longer than he can help ; this, the only unpleasant 

 part of the Conchologist's task, is usually effected by 

 plunging them into boiling water, and he should take 

 care that it is boiling, so that the poor creatures may 

 be instantly deprived of life. The animals, when 

 dead, may easily be removed from bivalve shells by 

 inserting a thin knife between the valves and cutting 

 the adductor muscles ; those of univalves, by means 

 of a pin used after the manner so adroitly practised 

 by the vendors of whelks and " winkles." It fre- 

 quently happens that the most painstaking efforts to 

 remove the whole of the animal, especially in the case 

 of the smaller species, prove ineffectual, a portion of 

 it being left behind, to the disfigurement of the shell 

 (if it be transparent), near the apex ; sometimes the 

 fragment may be removed with a bent pin, but in 

 most cases' it cannot be reached, and as it is worth 

 while to take a little trouble to extract it from a 

 valuable specimen, the following method may be tried, 

 and will usually prove successful. A teacup or wine- 

 glass is filled with damp sand, into which the shell is 

 plunged (apex downwards) till it is firmly imbedded, 



