COLLECTING AND PRESERVING SNAILS, ETC. I I 



is then soldered on, and also a zinc handle for a stick to fit into is 

 made and soldered on, or better, riveted to the zinc ring, so that, 

 when finished, it resembles in shape, more or less, a small brewing 

 sieve. Thus it is stronger than the net, and can be wielded with 

 a more powerful hand without much fear of mishaps occurring to 

 spoil the day's collecting. Should, however, the net be preferred, 

 it should be made of strong book-muslin, of an oblong bag-shape, 

 and the ring should be of thick galvanised iron. The chip boxes 

 can be bought in nests from any dealer at a cheap rate, and their 

 utility consists simply in forming pocketable boxes in which to 

 carry home your specimens. The paraphernalia, then, is only 

 wanted for water-specimens ; for land-shells and slugs nothing is 

 needed but your own fingers and eyes. 



The specimens, we must now assume, are collected, and taken 

 home to be made ready for a place in the collection. How are 

 they to be made ready ? In the first place, they must be killed ; 

 in the case of the snails, by boiling water, and, in the case of the 

 slugs, by drowning. The animals of the shells must then be 

 extracted. With the univalves this is done best with a bent pin ; 

 with the bivalves the animal is best extracted by the small blade of 

 the pocket-knife, or by a small scalpel. The shells of the univalves 

 are then well cleaned by hard brushing with a tooth-brush dipped 

 in pure water ; the shells of the bivalves are to have their two 

 valves tied together tightly with cotton or string so that the 

 ligaments may dry, and so prevent them from divaricating, after 

 which they are to be cleaned in the fashion employed with the 

 univalves. Mr. Roebuck is not inclined to clean his shells, as 

 he thinks the amount of confervoid growth often interesting ; 

 but this must be left to the personal ideas of the collector alone. 



It is quite another method with the slugs. Their shells may 

 be extracted from underneath the mantle (except in Testacella, 

 where the shell k situated on the tip of the tail) by the pen- 

 knife, and glued on cardboard or kept loose in chip boxes, or 

 the animal itself may be preserved in one of two ways. It 

 may be preserved by the dry or by the wet method. There 

 are two dry methods. In one recommended by Hiibner the 

 animal is killed by immersion in methylated spirit, and the wb Je 

 of the viscera is extracted through a longitudinal incision made 



