278 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIII, 
It may be well again to draw prominent attention to the fact that carbolic 
acid destroys the eyesight, and that the greatest care must be taken not to 
allow the smallest splash of the acid te get into the eye. 
In connection with the preservation of birds without skinning them, I 
lately came across,in Mr, Montagu Browne’s most useful book “ Practical 
Vaxidermy,” an allusion to a successful experiment by him of keeping a bird 
in the flesh for some weeks by immersing it in benzoline. He explains how 
the preservation was complete, and, after drying it with Plaster-of-Paris, how 
it was skinned as if it was a freshly-killed specimen. This would on many 
occasions be most useful, both to the collector when he gets more specimens 
than his skinner has time to tackle, and more particularly to the member who 
kills a bird that he wishes to send to the Society, but cannot do so because he 
is unable to skin it and is too far away to send it down in the flesh. But 
unfortunately there is the difficulty that benzoline is not obtainable in this 
country, and I consequently set about to find a substitute for it, This, I am 
pleased to say, has turned up in Formalin—a solution that has proved a 
wonderful disinfectant as well as a preservative for minnows and prawns to 
be used as baits,or for surgical specimens for subsequent dissection. It is ob- 
tainable as a 35 per cent. solution, and for the purpose of preserving a bird — 
or for the matter of that any other specimen—this can be reduced by the ad- 
dition of from ten to fifteen parts of water to one part of Formalin solution. 
The specimen is then to be simply immersed in this reduced solution, after an 
insertion has been made under the wing to allow of its thoroughly impreg- 
nating it, though it is probably advisable to entirely remove the intestines, 
For keeping a specimen any length of time a stronger solution would no 
doubt be found necessary, but one part to fifteen of water was perfectly 
successful in the experiment I made with a Rose-coloured Pastor that was 
immersed for five days. On removing it the bird was dusted all over with 
Plaster-of-Paris, and then allowed to lie for three hours to dry, when 
the plaster was removed and the bird then skinned in the ordinary way 
making a perfect specimen. I hope that our up-country members will bear 
this in wind, and keep a bottle of Formalin by them to make use of as 
occasion occurs, instead of sending down specimens that strike them as 
valuable, or that they wish to be identified, only to arrive in a putrid and — 
useless state of decomposition. 
T will only add that birds so preserved dry as one solid mass, and it is very 
necessary, in order to make a good specimen, to be careful that everything 
is arranged nicely, as there isno making any alterations or improvements 
afterwards, 
Nests and eggs.—It it is true that we have a lot still to learn about many 
of the birds that are found in the countries within our area, how much more 
is it true of their nests and eggs—and particularly the former? ‘The difh- 
culty with nests is that when anyone goes collecting and comes across a rare 
