1880] Letters to a Beginner. 345 



(Aztgust qth.} I will see about your insects. Did I offeryou a copy 

 of our book, " Cybele Hibernica" ? It is the best for Irish localities, 

 and you are very welcome if you will accept a copy from me. I think 

 and hope you will become a good naturalist ; but do nothing hastily. 

 Collect material, specimens and notes, carefully and critically, for 

 many years, and then you will have good results. A collection is always 

 a pledge of work. Excuse this scrawl, written on my back in bed. 

 Will you send me your photo in exchange ? . . . . Please send to 

 E.Williams, 2, Dame-street, Dublin, one or two specimens of your 

 Black Rat, and he will stuff them forme. Please say they are for me. 

 I am obliged to retire on pension, and give up my Curatorship on 

 Thursday next. 



(August ijth.} I hope you have received a copy of "Cybele 

 Hibernica" which I sent you by post. Have you got Hookers' 

 " Students' Flora" ? That is an excellent book for making out your 

 plants ; costs IDS. 6d. There should be no great difficulty in finding 

 the tall Campanula along your river. The point is whether C. latifolia 

 grows or not with you. It is much taller usually than C. trachelium 

 (the nettle-leaved B. F.). If you find either please send me a full- 

 length plant in flower or seed. Did you see the Colchicum ? It should 

 grow in low, flat meadows along the river a great big tuft of broad 

 leaves, or, as you know, a pale crocus-like flower. 



(September z'jth.'] Now about your specimens. You should at once 

 begin to prepare good and satisfactory specimens, such as you can 

 keep all your life, and place in a Herbarium. There is only one way. 

 All the great collections over Europe are so done, and they keep safe 

 and sound for years. The plants are first dried between sheets of 

 porous (i.e. unglazed) paper, such as blotting paper or rough grey 

 grocers' paper. The whole secret is to use plenty of paper (say six or 

 eight leaves, between the different specimens). Put, say, four to six 

 inches layers of paper between boards ; then heavy weights on top ; 

 and change them every day into fresh, dry paper no cotton wool, nor 

 anything at all except paper. But you may put a sheet of thin cap 

 paper over and under the delicate specimens, which is to be allowed 

 to remain attached to the plant until dry. When changing, simply let 

 this thin paper adhere to the plant, and do not attempt to remove it ; 

 but change, of course, all the rest of the paper. Never mind the colour: 

 it is of little importance, and it -will fade in the end, whatever you do. 

 Usually there are some ladies in a family who will help in changing and 

 in drying the plants. My own sister did a good part of it for me when 

 we lived in the Isle of Wight. Let the size be 17 by 1 1 inches, or there- 

 abouts same size nearly as the white paper on which you will mount 

 your specimens for keeping them in your Herbarium ; and you should 

 poison them with a light wash of corrosive sublimate dissolved in spirits 

 of wine. Begin on the right system and you will never regret it; and 

 this will save your recommencing. If you begin wrong you will lose 

 no end of time. I could not put it shorter. 



