Cambridge. — On 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 

 pi'isoners 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. Bichard 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 

 sufficiently large just to receive legs and all without cramping them, and deep 

 enough to allow the spider just to be free, when a flat glass is laid on the 



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