﻿MODE OP ARRANGING SPECIMENS. 277 



our scientific friends ; but the practice has now become 

 almost general. It is simply arranging the birds in 

 drawers, as shells or minerals are kept ; the specimens 

 of each genus being placed together, and laid in rows 

 upon carded cotton. The cabinets, of course, should 

 be thoroughly well made, and the drawers of different 

 depths. The large birds, indeed, or those of the size 

 of a goose, are kept in chests ; but all others, if pre- 

 served upon the hooded or contracted plan already 

 alluded to (£25.), may be contained in a cabinet by 

 themselves, the drawers of which should be from three 

 to one inch and three-quarters deep, the length about 

 nineteen inches, and the breadth eighteen inches. That 

 the collector may form an idea of the great advantage, 

 merely as regards space, that attends this mode, we shall 

 just mention the following fact. An oak cabinet is now 

 before us, of the following dimensions : — four feet 

 seven inches high, three feet three inches broad, and 

 nineteen inches deep ; it contains thirty- six drawers, in 

 two tiers, each drawer measuring in the clear, two inches 

 one-tenth in depth, eighteen inches in breadth, and six- 

 teen and a quarter inches in length.* In this cabinet 

 are contained no less than 6*14 specimens, few of 

 which are small ; the birds chiefly belonging to the 

 woodpecker, parrot, toucan, cuckow, hawk, pigeon, and 

 other middle-sized families. One, two, or even three 

 such cabinets, may be arranged in our common-sized 

 rooms as articles of furniture, the fronts of the drawers 

 being protected by folding doors, with brass lattice work 

 over purple silk. 1000 or 1500 birds will take the 

 collector some time to acquire; and he may by this 

 means have them compactly, and even beautifully, ar- 

 ranged in his library or drawing-room, without any 

 risk of the plumage being injured by the light (a cir- 



* This cabinet was originally made for minerals, and all the drawers 

 are of equal depth. If a similar sized one was made expressly for birds, we 

 should recommend that four of the drawers were two inches and a half 

 deep in the clear, ten two and two-tenths of an inch, four two inches, 

 twelve one inch and three-quarters, ten one inch and a half, total forty 

 drawers, making the entire height much the same as that just mentioned. 

 T 3 



