172 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 
objects immediately around me. Besides, I had engaged to deliver 
a course of lectures in Boston, and in the attempt to go in the same 
time through that work and the examination, anatomical as well as 
zoological, of every species of animal I could obtain from the market 
and from some excursions on the beaches in the vicinity, I was 
brought into such a state of excitement that I at last was taken sick 
so severely that I have not moved from my bed for these last three 
weeks. I am now recovering gradually, and hope soon to be up again, 
and able to go into the country; when I shall have the pleasure of 
seeing you in the course of the summer at the time which will be 
most convenient to you. 
As you have been kind enough to offer me your assistance in 
making collections, I take now the liberty to suggest some points 
in which you could greatly aid me. In the Zoological department 
my researches bear always upon the anatomical and embryological 
side of all questions, and so I prefer to have a great number of speci- 
mens of the most common species in all their ages, than to have few 
specimens of many rare species. I will mention as an example, that 
I should collect as many as twenty and more specimens of all your 
salamanders, frogs, toads, and have, besides, the tadpoles in all 
their different states, the whole preserved in spirit. So with other 
reptiles; among fishes, I should prefer those neglected small species 
of Cyprinide and other river fishes; and to preserve them for future 
anatomical investigation, I use to inject spirit through the anus 
and mouth into the intestines, and in larger specimens also into the 
abdominal cavity through a cut in the wall of that cavity. Even 
birds and mammalia, especially the smaller species, I preserve in 
the same manner in spirit, as often as I can secure specimens which 
are not badly shot. It is time to ascertain through anatomical 
examination what is the value of all those genera which have been 
established among birds, and this cannot be done except with such 
a collection. Even in a Zoological point of view, it is impossible to 
preserve bats better than in spirits, which must be strong, but not 
so much so as to occasion a shrinking of the soft parts. Of course, 
worms, mollusks, and all parasites cannot be preserved otherwise. 
Now, if you have time to secure for me in this way some of the animals 
of your country, I should be most obliged, and, of course, not only 
repay you all expenses it will be necessary to make for this, but 
