MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
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injected in the body cavity (inserting the needle behind the fore legs 
and in front of the hind legs), in the neck, and in the fleshy parts of 
the limbs and tail. If a syringe is not used, make slits through the body 
wall in the places where the injections would be made. Open the mouth 
of turtles and amphibians, securing it in that position by inserting a 
piece of wood or a cork in the case of turtles and a plug of cotton in the 
case of amphibians. 
Having prepared the specimens to be preserved entire in formalin, 
before placing in the liquid tie on the labels and enter the data in the 
notebook opposite the corresponding numbers. The date and place of 
capture, collector's name, nature of habitat, notes on habits, and. pre- 
ferably, general color notes (i.e., exact shades of color but not pattern) 
should be recorded, and any other information obtained. (See Fig. 2.) 
Stejneger* has given a good account of how the label should be at- 
tached. “In tying the label on be careful not to fasten it tighter than 
necessary to prevent the label from slipping off. Never tie a label round 
the neck of a specimen; in lizards and salamanders fasten it round the 
body just behind the fore legs; in frogs and toads in front of the hind 
legs; in snakes round the body at about the anterior third; finally, in 
turtles, tie the string to one of the legs, and only in this case is it 
necessary and permissable to draw it very tight.” 
If the specimens are to be sent to the museum, they may, when 
thoroughly hardened, be removed from the pans and packed rather 
closely in glass bottles or jars, crocks, or wooden containers (metal con- 
tainers are seldom satisfactory) and covered with 4% formalin. If it is 
desired to preserve them permanently transfer the specimens, when 
thoroughly hardened, from the formalin to alcohol. For amphibians the 
alcohol should be about 55%, for reptiles 75%. 
Eggs and Larval Stages: Eggs and the larval stages of the amphi- 
bians may be dropped directly into 2% formalin, and if later transferred 
to 4% formalin they may be left there permanently. Boulengerf also 
gives the following method of preserving tadpoles: “Tadpoles should 
be preserved in alcohol. Chromic acid is not to be recommended, as 
rendering the specimens too brittle for ordinary study. To ensure the 
good condition of specimens preserved in spirit, it is necessary to treat 
them with a little care; tadpoles thrown into the ordinary collecting- 
bottle promiscuously with other specimens are never in a satisfactory 
condition for display in a collection and for future study. The best 
plan is to provide one’s self, when going out collecting, with small test- 
tubes half-full of weak spirit; the tadpoles, when taken out of the fish- 
ing-net, should be dipped head foremost in the tube, which may be filled 
with as many specimens as it will hold. On reaching home, say two or 
three hours later, the liquor should be at once changed to strong spirit 
(40%), which will again require changing the next day, and so on until 
it ceases to be strongly colored. By this method, of killing in weak 
spirit and then seizing by strong spirit, the tadpole preserves its natural 
shape in a remarkably perfect manner, and the delicate caudal crests 
do not shrivel.” These specimens are generally so delicate that only a 
paper label may be placed in the bottle, but if metal numbers are being- 
used these may be tied to the neck of the bottle. Such specimens are to 
*Loc. cit., p. 10. 
fProc. Zool. Soc. London. 1891, 599. 
