236 TAGG—NOTES ON MUSEUM-METHODS 
FIXING AND SUSPENDING THE SPECIMEN. 
I. General. 
In the earliest preparations exhibited in round jars and bottles 
the specimen was simply placed in the jar, and where necessary 
loose parts were fastened together and delicate organs supported 
by tying the specimen with silk thread to glass rods, or the parts 
of a specimen were pinned together with thin glass rods. Or 
the specimen was simply suspended by silk thread from the 
cork or stopper of the jar. One or another or a combination of 
these methods was used as the requirements of the case seemed 
to dictate. In this way those morphological features of the 
specimen that it was desired to direct attention to were brought 
as much as possible to one side of the jar that they might be 
more easily seen and less distorted by the convex surface of the 
glass. 
An advance upon this was the method of tying the specimens 
with silk thread to thin, almost transparent, sheets of mica. Holes 
were drilled in the mica with a needle and the thread tying the 
specimen was fastened behind. The mica possessed what proved 
a great advantage when circular jars were used, considerable 
flexibility. The mica-sheet was cut as wide or a little wider than 
the diameter of the jar, so that when placed in position within 
the jar the specimen attached to it was held by the flexible mica 
more or less to the one side of the jar and was thus readily seen. 
Commonly the mouth of the jar was smaller than the body, 
and in this case by carefully bending the mica a relatively large 
sheet could he introduced into a comparatively small-necked 
ttle. 
These details are given as the methods are still sometimes 
resorted to, but as a rule at the present time the specimens are not 
tied but are fastened by some form of cement, while the adoption 
of the rectangular form of vessel, in connection with which the 
support for the specimen need not be flexible—indeed flexibility 
becomes a disadvantage—has led to mica being replaced by thin 
sheet glass. co 
The disadvantages of tying the specimen to the supporting 
glass are:—1, Great care must be exercised or the specimens are 
