72 



The Naturalist. 



washed clean by a heavy shower, and will find an abundant harvest ; 

 while the man from a distance may find everything cleared away or 

 filled in, and, unless very fortunate, may have to pay several visits 

 before he happens to hit a favourable time. 



How, then, should we set about our collecting so as to obtain useful 

 results ? To do this we must remember that, as I said before, the 

 end of our collecting should be the study of the animals, plants, 

 fossils, or minerals which we collect. Now these objects may be 

 studied from various points of view ; we may study their intrinsic 

 characters, or we may concern ourselves with the circumstances under 

 which they occur — their distribution in space and time. Suppose that 

 we wish to study the characteristics of a plant or animal, it is of great 

 importance that our specimen should be a perfect, typical, and well- 

 developed one, and if we mean it for preservation, it should be as far 

 as possible a complete illustration of the species, or if this be 

 impracticable, we should have a series of specimens so as to give a 

 representation of every part. Thus, in drying a plant for our herba- 

 rium, we should, if possible, choose a specimen which shows root, 

 stem, leaves, flowers, and fruit, so that we can see the whole of the 

 plant at a glance ; of course, however, this cannot be done in the case 

 of very large plants, such as trees. Ah exception should also be made 

 where a plant occurs in but small quantity, as by digging up the 

 root we might run the risk of exterminating it. Of dioicous plants, 

 both sexes should be shown. Inexperienced botanists very often 

 ignore this golden rule, and, with a view to making their specimen 

 look neat as if for a nosegay, cut off the root and lower leaves, and 

 the flowers that may have run to seed ; yet upon these parts essential 

 characters often depend. In the case of animals and fossils we should 

 not rest content with anything short of a typical and perfectly pre- 

 served specimen, if such can be obtained. With fossils this is very 

 often not the case, and we have to content ourselves with such frag- 

 ments as we can get ; bet even then we may be able, by a series of 

 specimens — one showing one point, and another another, to give a 

 much more complete representation of the whole than could be 

 obtained by a single specimen. Still we must not be too particular, 

 or we shall miss a great deal. The best plan is, if we find something 

 that we have not got before, to keep the specimen, even if it be not a 

 perfect one, until we find a better. If we pass it by, we may not find 

 another. 



Another point of great importance is, that our specimens be named. 

 Any observations we may make will be of little or no value unless 



