396 



SOME HINTS FOR BEGINNERS ON COLLECTING AND 

 PRESERVING NATURAL HISTORY SPECIMENS. 



By E. Comber, f.z.s. 



[Continued from page 650 of Vol. XIII.*) 



Part IV. 



Note. — In recommencing this series of papers after so long an interval 

 as five years, I feel that a word of apology is perhaps appropriate. In 

 the first place circumstances intervened which prevented me from being 

 able to spare the requisite time for the preparation of the subsequent 

 parts, and in the second place I felt that so little response had been 

 forthcoming in the way of specimens contributed to our collections, except 

 of course of bird skins, of whicli we have a number of careful and 

 enthusiastic collectors, that it seemed hardly worth while continuing 

 the series on the last section of the vertebrates (Fishes) and on the 

 several groups of invertebrate animals, which apparently, with the single 

 exception of the Insects, fail to arouse any degree of enthusiasm amongst 

 the present younger generation of our members. However it has been 

 urged on me that the papers were perhaps more generally appreciated 

 than I imagined, and that a few practical notes on the way to set about 

 collecting and preserving the lower animals might at any rate induce a 

 few beginners to try their hands at the job. If the results justify this 

 hope, I shall be more than satisfied. 



It is amongst the lower forms of animal life that the way is open to 

 any one, who will take a little trouble, to do a vast amount of really orig- 

 inal and useful work, not only in the way of bringing previously un- 

 known, or unrecognised, forms to the notice of naturalists, hut of study- 

 ing and noting the habits and life histories of species already de- 

 scribed from their fully developed forms. It is in this latter connection 

 that the true spirit of the field naturalist comes out, as distinguished from 

 the mere collector or museum expert, and I wish again to strongly im- 

 press upon the beginner the invaluable assistance of the note book, which 

 is too often ignored. The apparent insignificance of notes at the time 

 should never be allowed to deter a collector from entering them in 

 black and white in his note book, and even the roughest of sketches will 

 often help to recall details that would otherwise be forgotten in a short 

 time if merely entrusted to memory. In years to come it will be found 

 quite surprising how interesting these rough notes become, and how 



