6 NATURALISTS’ ASSISTANT. 
5 
It is best in the case of minute specimens to place them in 
homeeopathic vials with alcohol, then stop the vial with cork 
and place the whole, cork downward, in a larger bottle which 
in turn is to be filled with alcohol. This renders it easy at 
any time to find the specimen which would not be the case 
were it loose in a large bottle, while the alcohol in the outer 
vial will have to evaporate until the cork of the smaller is 
reached before there is the slightest danger of the contents 
of the inner bottle being injured. 
The best homceopathic vials for museum purposes are 
those made with straight sides without any neck or shoulder, 
as then the inside can be readily cleansed and all specimens 
can be readily taken out for examination. Rubber stoppers 
do not answer overwell for museum purposes, as the alcohol 
is apt to affect them and to set free the earth with which 
they are adulterated, and cover the objects with a dense 
white precipitate. ; 
In the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, 
oval glass jars with flat sides are used for starfishes and 
ophiurians. The mouth of the jar is ground and covered 
with a glass plate fastened by cement and also bya strip of 
tinfoil extending on both the glass cover and the sides of the 
jar. The specimen is spread on glass or mica plates and fas- 
tened with thread, bristles or silvered wire, and the whole 
placed in the spirit. 
Dissections of animal forms are preserved in alcohol by 
extending on some substance not affected by the spirit. The 
principal ones employed are mica, glass and wax. ‘The ob- 
