Parker.—On preserving Cartilaginous Skeletons. 263 
improved both in appearance and in usefulness for museum and lecture 
purposes by being painted and varnished—the hearts, e.g., receive the con- 
ventional blue and red hues. Distemper colours mixed with a solution of 
shellac in methylated spirit seem to answer very well. 
For brains, my present experience seems to show that my method is 
inferior to Giacomini’s,* but the number of experiments made is hardly 
sufficient to justify a very positive opinion. Anyhow, I do not expect to 
effect much improvement in this particular direction ; the series of brains 
prepared by my colleague Dr. Scott, by Giacomini’s method, could not easily 
be bettered. 
4, Invertebrate exoskeletons. A modification of the above method appears 
to be very useful for Crustacea, Echinodermata, and other invertebrates with 
hard exoskeletons. The internal organs are first, as far as possible, 
removed, and the specimens are then placed in glycerine fluid for a few days; 
they are then well drained, and after a few days dipped into thin size, kept 
as nearly as possible at the ordinary temperature of the air: this is done 
two or three times, and has the effect of producing a good surface; a coat 
of varnish may afterwards be applied or not according to circumstances. 
_ For the larger Crustacea this method appears to be very successful; the 
chitinous parts retain their flexibility, so that the risk of injury to the 
specimen is greatly diminished, and the natural colours are retained, in 
many cases, perfectly. A female Halimus hectori, for instance, with eggs 
attached to the swimmerets, has the general dark colour of the body 
unaltered, instead of being nearly colourless as in ordinary dried speci- 
mens, and the bright scarlet eggs have merely become a shade or two 
darker, their form and translucence being unchanged. 
5. Skins of fishes, amphibia, etc. From one or two experiments, I think 
the method described in the preceding paragraph is likely to prove vay 
useful for the preparation of skins of fishes, ete., for stuffing: The glycer 
fluid must, however, be of only half the usual strength, i.e., one part i 
glycerine to two of water. The fish is skinned while perfectly fresh, and 
the skin prepared as above and then stuffed. Some of the colours appear 
to be retained very well by this method, but I have not yet succeeded in 
retaining the more delicate shades, such as the spots of the trout and the 
pink tints of the red cod (Lotella bacchus). There is certainly one great 
* Journ. of Anat. and Phys., Jan., 1879. 
tI believe that my friend Professor Haddon, when curator of the Cambrid; 
soil ar ring Cony bat no ting a ea i 
