806 DIRECTIONS TO COLLECTOES 



however, among the high mountains, it is always safe to take a guide. 

 Wills suggests that the best way is to secure a good guide at starting, 

 and keep him during the whole tour. He costs about five or six 

 francs a day. 



Directions to Oolledors visiting Foreign Countries, condensed from 

 Hooker's Eew Miscellany, Vol. IX., pp. 214-219. 



A Botanist visiting a foreign country should make as perfect a 

 collection as possible of all the plants, neglecting no species, and pre- 

 serving specimens of every kiud, more especially such as seem to he 

 confined to certain localities. The arborescent plants, trees of every 

 description, are to be sought for and collected in flower and ia fruit ; 

 cones and larger acorns, and other kinds too large for the hortus siccus, 

 are to be preserved apart from the foliage, and notes made of the 

 locality, height, bulk of the trunk, etc. In proportion as mountains 

 are ascended, the vegetation will be found to change, and to become 

 more interesting and more peculiar. Particular notice should be taken 

 of the heights at which difierent plants grow, and of those plants 

 which are found nearest to the limit of perpetual snow. Care should 

 be taken to preserve the collections from wet and damp. They may 

 require to be opened occasionally, and exposed to a dry air or artificial 

 heat. Seeds should be collected, and transported in the way already 

 noticed. Objects of interest as regards economic botany should be 

 collected; such as articles of food, clothing, ornament, medicines, 

 resins, dye-stuffs, samples of woods, particularly those good for carpentry 

 and cabinet work. Varieties and abnormal forms of species should be 

 sought for and preserved, attention being paid to differences in habit, 

 and in the form of leaves and flowers in the same species at different 

 periods of growth and in different conditions of growth. A comparison 

 should be instituted between the flowers of different regions, as of the 

 plains, swamps, and of different heights and exposures on the moun- 

 tains, as well' of different geological districts, as granite, limestone, etc. 

 The times of leafing and flowering of bushes and trees, etc., should be 

 noticed. When the vegetation seems unusually retarded or accelerated, 

 the tempMature of the surface soil and at three feet deep should be 

 ascertained, wherever possible. The collector should, as soon as pos- 

 sible, make himself acquainted with the names of the more common 

 and conspicuous plants of the district he traverses, by consulting any 

 works which may have been written regarding it. The plants which 

 affect waysides or the tracks of man and animals should be noticed, 

 and the effect of clearing away forests and of burning grass land on 

 the subsequent vegetation should be attended to. The transport of 

 seeds by man and animals is a subject of great interest, which should 

 not be neglected. Care should be taken to ticket the specimens, so 



