A natuealist's work-room. 237 



a board similar to the bottom one, and loaded with 

 large stones for weights. Every day these are 

 shifted ; the upper board becoming in turn the foun- 

 dation, fresh paper being supplied, on which the 

 plants are laid one by one, as before, and the damp 

 paper taken away. When the shifting is performed, 

 this paper is spread out in the sun to dry, and laid in 

 a heap to be used in turn to-morrow. The new 

 plants are taken from the large portfolio in which 

 they were placed when gathered, and added to those 

 in the press ; while such specimens as are sufficiently 

 dried are successively removed to the store-box. 



Perchance the curious visitor might see the 

 naturalist himself busy with his insect-spoils ; im- 

 mersing the beetles in boiling water, subjecting the 

 Lepidoptera to the vapour of prussic acid, pinning 

 them in the setting-boxes, and fastening down the 

 wings of the butterflies with little braces of card-paper. 

 Or he might be recording the facts observed in the 

 morning's tour, before their freshness had faded from 

 the memory ; or taking sketches of forms and colours 

 that death would destroy ; or occasionally glancing a 

 master's eye over the operations of the subordinates. 



But other than human tenants occupy this room. 

 The visitor would see hanging against the wall a 

 long low cage containing a dozen or so of the native 

 Columhadce, among which the noble Baldpate and 

 gentle Peadove are conspicuous. Another large 

 cage is inhabited by some of the more gaily coloured 

 fruit-eating birds, as the Cashew-bird, the Blue Quit, 

 &c., and in a gauze-fronted box on one of the tables 

 are half a score Lizards of different species, crawling 



