58 NATURALISTS’ ASSISTANT. 
same course may be pursued when sending specimens from 
the field or from one museum to another. With fishes so 
sent it is usual to place the labels under the gill covers. 
Smaller specimens may be stored in cork-stoppered bot- 
tles. A cheap way of obtaining these is to buy the empty 
morphine and quinine bottles of the apothecary. These 
are of good glass and have wide mouths. Corks for these 
may readily be rendered tight by immersing in melted par- 
affine, or better in paraffine dissolved in benzine. ‘These 
storage bottles should be so arranged that any desired spec- 
imen can readily be found. 
One thing that should be constantly kept in mind in the 
museum is that it is as easy to have too much on exhibition 
as too little. The primary object of a collection is to in- 
struct, but with many confusion only results. Every speci- 
men should not be on exhibition ; nor should every species 
or genus. It should be the object of the curator to make 
the collection typical; to select those species which best 
illustrate the larger groups, while all others are relegated 
to drawers, boxes, etc., where they will be readily accessible to 
the special student but will not aid in confusing the average 
museum visitor. 
The space thus gained should be utilized by labels and 
cards, conveying in plain language the characters of the va- 
rous groups. It is also well to place in the cases drawings 
illustrating the structure and growth of the various classes of 
the animal kingdom. These may be plain or colored ac- 
cording to nature, or conventionally, to show more clearly 
