MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 
177 
in the top to provide air. Turtles and crocodilians may be placed in 
wooden boxes with dry hay or excelsior. 
GENERAL REMARKS. 
It will be seen from the above directions that specimens of the groups 
in question are easily prepared, and that no particular skill or elaborate 
equipment is necessary. A good collection does, however, demand two 
things of the collector, viz., carefulness in preparing specimens and ac- 
curacy in recording data. The adage that anything worth doing is 
worth doing well applies here. A collection of reptiles and amphibians 
from any locality is decidedly worth the effort, and the value of the 
collection increases directly with the pains that is taken with it. Care 
should be taken to avoid mutilating the specimens, to get the body and 
limbs in sightly shape before preservation, and to see that preservation 
goes forward perfectly, — a little more arsenic where spots on drying 
skins are slow to harden or more formaldehyde injected in places where 
the specimens in liquid show a tendency to spoil will save many valu- 
able specimens. Above all, accuracy must be observed in labeling and 
recording notes, for a specimen with full data is immeasurably more 
valuable than one with little or none. 
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