Ria Deke Veni a Soa Re tn a 
164 
| 
greater number may be seized with the fingers with a 
little practice, and immediately plunged into a bottle of 
spirits of wine, or any other strong spirit ; but many large 
ones may be boxed with large pill-boxes (of course, only 
one in each box), and at the end of the day may 
be suffocated with brimstone or chloroform, and then 
put into the spirit. Where a collector is collecting 
insects, he may catch many swift-running or strongly- 
jumping spiders by placing his open net in front and 
driving them into it with the other hand. A large um- 
brella is a first-rate implement for beating boughs or long 
herbage into. 
4.—What to do with Avachnida after having caught 
and bottled them. 
All that need be done is to put as many into a bottle 
as can be fairly got into it. There is no need to put 
large specimens into one bottle and small into another ; 
for it is found practically that a judicious mixture of 
large and small is of no disadvantage, but rather the 
contrary. 
One special point to be always observed is to fill up 
the bottle, where the specimens do not quite do so, with 
small bits of soft paper crushed up and gently inserted, 
until the contents fail to move about with the motion 
and shaking of the bottle. 
The best bottles are } oz. phials, 1 oz, 2 oz., and 4 oz. 
wide-mouthed ditto, all of which are kept in stock by 
chemists or bottle-makers in England. The smallest of 
these will hold a large number of small specimens, and 
the largest are large enough for all exc2pt a very few of 
the gigantic JZyga/ide and scorpions; for the latter it must 
be a barren region which will not furnish an empty 
pickle-bottle capable of holding some scores of the 
largest species. Tight corking is, of course, necessary, 
and in hot regions tying down of the corks. 
Of course any notes on the sexes of species or their habits, 
&c. as well as on their colours, as these sometimes fade in 
spirits, are valuable ; and where notes can be made, there 
should be a supply of test tubes of various siz2s into 
which the example noted should be placed with a written 
card or letter, witha parchment number corresponding 
with the numbered note, The tube should then be filled 
with spirit and stopped firmly with a piece of cotton-wool, 
and placed wool downwards, in one of the wide-mouthed 
phials. A number of tubes may thus be packed into a 
phial, but spirits should also be always put into the phial 
as wellas into the tube. 
Where there is a fear of handling spiders of large size, 
or scorpions, a simple pair of forceps may be made 
of a piece of bent hoop-iron, rivetted at the bend through 
a piece of inserted tough wood, this gives sufficient spring 
to keep the digital joints always extended a little way. 
With these forceps Arachnida of a large size may be safely 
caught, or extracted from holes and crevices. 
Mr. Bates’ plan for killing the Mygales on the Amazons, 
was to get them into a tin pot or box, put the cover on, 
and place it for a few minutes upon the glowing embers 
of a charcoal fire. Thesejmeans of killing may be used 
where neither brimstone nor chloroform are available. 
From the above hints it will be seen that, compared to 
the trouble of collecting birds, mammals, or insects which 
require careful setting and drying, the trouble of collecting 
and preserving Arachnida is nil, and in all tropical regions 
an intelligent native would collect hundreds of specimens 
in a day if he were only furnished with two or three large 
bottles full of strong spirit. 
Thus all that is necessary for the complete equipment 
of acollector of Arachnida is a large umbrella, a pair of 
forceps (such as are above described) about twelve inches 
long, two or three dozen of the bottles above-mentioned, 
a hundred or so of test-tubes of different sizes, a little 
cotton-wool, soft paper, and some strong spirit, which 
may be got on the spot nearly everywhere. 
O. P. CAMBRIDGE 
NATURE ! Bian. 2 
wut 
et 
INTRODUCTORY LECTURE OF THE MURCHI- | 
SON CHAIR OF GEOLOGY AT EDINBURGH, 
SESSTON.1872-3 * : 
EFORE entering on the special subjects to be treated 
of in the following course of lectuygs, it is most desir-— 
able that we should definitely shape to ourselves the objects — 
we have in view. By doing so we can the better take 
stock from time to time of our gains, and judge at the end 
how far we have succeeded in achieving any solid ad- 
vantages. will 
Now, if I put the question frankly to you, What do you 
propose to accomplish by voluntarily placing yourselves 
under such a course of instruction as that which begins 
here to-day? you will, perhaps, reply that your desire is 
to know something more of a science which offers to your 
minds so many points of interest. 
The task you have undertaken promises to be a pleasant 
one, and possibly all the more so since there may be a 
very general impression among my audience that your 
duties here will be rather an exercise of the memory than 
of the reasoning powers, and hence a not unwelcome relief 
from severer studies, 
I should be sorry to dispel so pleasing a belief; on the 
contrary, it would give me some assurance that if our 
conjoint efforts fail the fault will lie with me, and not 
with you. Nevertheless, I have a deep conviction that, in 
seeking here merely an addition to your knowledge, you 
would neither do justice to the subject we are to study nor 
to yourselves. , 
I know only too well that the imparting of knowledge is 
popularly supposed to be the only aim and purpose of 
natural science teaching, and that this notion pervades 
our system of education. I believe it to be but a partial 
view of the truth ; and even at the risk of being thought 
dull I would lay before you another view, that you may see 
what additional objects you may, in my opinion, accom- 
plish here, besides storing your minds with facts. : 
No one who thoughtfully considers the state of public 
feeling in this country at the present time can doubt that 
we are on the eve of educational changes more momentous 
than any which have come to pass for centuries. It is not 
merely that education has become a political cry ; that it 
forms a staple element in the declamations which fill the 
air from the halls of St. Stephen’s to the village green ; 
and that all this oratory finds further exposition and 
enforcement in the public prints. It is not merely that we 
believe it will be hard, a generation hence, to find a man 
or woman throughout the land who cannot at least read 
and write. These results, profoundly important as they 
are, do not fill up the whole measure of change which is 
impending, nor are they those which most nearly con- 
cern you and me at present. 
It is impossible that such radical reforms should be 
worked in the primary education of the country without 
an influence, and perhaps an extremely potent one, upon 
the higher forms of culture. On every side, indeed, we 
can already descry indications of the coming changes— 
changes, however, which are not wholly, nor even, perhaps, 
chiefly, due to the disturbances of our primary educational 
system, but which would assuredly have been brought 
about, even had no sweeping Parliamentary legislation 
taken place. 
Nowhere can these indications be more significantly 
scen than among those conservative educational centres, 
where it might have been supposed that the call for reform 
would have been longest in making itself heard and 
obeyed. Even there the old and time-honoured traditions 
are losing their hold. The young blood of a newer time 
has begun to quicken some of the most dormant of our 
institutions. 
Uncompromising opposition is apt so to embitter a 
struggle, that what is at first only a desire for reform par- 
takes in the end somewhat of the blind fury of a revolution. 
* Given on Noy. 11 by Prof. Geikie, F.R.S, 
