CAMBRIDGE.—Ü the Spiders of New Zealand. 197 
the lid of the pill-box at the time of capture, and to defer chloroforming and 
putting into spirits until the day’s collecting is over, when notes may be 
entered from the lid of each box into the note-book at leisure. The spiders 
can then also be placed in separate tubes or portions of tubes of spirit, divided 
from each other by a small dividing layer of cotton wool, and each with a little 
number written on parchment, and slipped into the tube with it, referring to 
the numbered notes in the note book or collecting journal. In absence of 
chloroform, brimstone will stupefy spiders, or they may be placed over (but 
not in) boiling water. Spiders again may be (like Coleoptera) collected into 
a wide-mouthed bottle in which chopped laurel leaves or blotting paper slightly 
saturated with prussic acid have been placed, from which they can be removed 
and placed in spirit at the end of the day. Spiders of large size, especially 
those with soft and tumid bodies, preserve their form and colours best if kept 
prisoners for a few days without food in the pill-boxes ; during this time they 
discharge a great deal of the crude contents of the abdomen, which would have 
rendered their ultimate preservation, even in spirit, doubtful. 
IV.—MODE OF PRESERVATION AS CABINET OBJECTS. 
Beautiful as are the colours and markings of numbers of spiders, especially 
of those found in the tropics, yet it is not easy to make good-looking, sightly 
cabinet objects of the Araneidea ; and hence, perhaps, more than from any 
other cause, this order is, in comparison with the insect orders, almost wholly 
neglected. It is possible, however, to display a large proportion of them very 
satisfactorily, if care and dexterous manipulation are used. This may be effected 
in more than one way. Many species, whose abdominal integument is strong, 
and pretty thickly clothed with hairs, or hairy pubescence, may be pinned, 
dried, and set out like insects; the abdomen may in some cases be simply 
opened from beneath, and after the contents are extracted stuffed with the 
finest cotton wool ; others may have the abdomen inflated with a blow-pipe 
after its contents have been pressed out, and then rapid drying prevents the 
obliteration of colour and markings. But the best way to preserve both 
colour, markings, and form, for scientific purposes (and with some little extra 
care and trouble, for cabinet objects also), is to immerse and keep them in 
spirit of wine, or other strong spirit. The late Mr. Richard Beck, of 31, 
Cornhill, London, communicated to me a method of preserving spiders in 
spirit, by enclosing them within a flat under-glass and a concave upper one, 
the two being cemented together with gold size. The spider has to be set out 
(in spirit) in a natural position, until the limbs are tolerably rigid ; it is then. 
laid on its back in a thin concave glass, like a watch glass—this glass must be 
sufliciently large just to receive legs and all without eramping them, and deep 
enough to allow the spider just to be free, when a flat glass is laid on the 
; Fl 
