THE ^STATIOjSTAL COLLECTION OF COCCID^. 5 



inspection and quarantine work of the new importations made by 

 the Department, and in this field has detected and i^revented the 

 introduction of a number of new scale insects wliich probably would 

 have made very destructiye records if established in this country. 



PRESERVATIOX OF MATERIAL. 



The first effort was to arrange for the proper preservation of the 

 type and other material, and a modification of the system followed 

 by Green was adopted — namely, the inclosing of material in strongly 

 made pasteboard boxes, following a definite unit of length and 

 breadth, 3 by 2 inches, so that they can be arranged in five columns 

 in the standard insect drawer which has been in use in the U. S. 

 National Museum : '' these boxes vary in depth, however, to "accomo- 

 date different quantities of material. All type and valuable material, 

 in fact all material not in large quantity, is further protected by being 

 first folded in squares of lens paper to retain any loose scales or insects. 

 By this system the bulk of the collection was enormously reduced 

 and loss of valuable specimens obviated. This system presents also 

 the great convenience that additions may be made with the same facil- 

 ity as in a card catalogue. 



SjDecial card labels suitable to the nature of the collection were 

 secured from the Library Bureau. These are of different colors to 

 indicate respectively the genus, the valid species and varieties, and 

 the typical material of the species reduced to synonymy. 



THE SLIDE COLLECTION. 



The slide preparations of the different species had become very 

 extensive, and now comprise fully 10,000 slides, relating to more 

 than a thousand species. A new system of storage for slide material 

 was devised, following the plan of the ordinars' card catalogue cabi- 

 net.^ The older systems of slide storage had proved to be very un- 

 satisfactory for so large a collection representing so many different 

 species. None of the older systems was sufficiently elastic or allowed 

 easy systematic classification, but required card indexes and the con- 

 sultation of many different slide boxes to get together material repre- 

 senting a single subject. This led the writer to devise a cabinet in 

 which the slides could be filed on the card index plan. To enable 

 a slide to be thus stored a special envelope or jacket is provided for 

 each slide. This jacket is made of strong manila paper and but 

 little larger than the standard slide size (slide 1 by 3 inches, jacket 

 1^ by 3^ inches), affords an opportunity for sufficient labeling, and 



o The insect drawers since then adopted by the National Mnsenm. and in- 

 tended for pinned insects, are somewhat shallower than those first used. 

 & See Science, Dec. 30, 1904, p. 925. 



