408 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
In placing specimens in jars or bottles while they are flexible, care should be taken 
that the receptacles are large enough to permit of their removal after the hardening 
process is complete, otherwise one or the other will be injured, and it is needless to say 
an experienced person will invariably sacrifice the jar. 
It is common practice to use, for the first bath, old alcohol that has become too 
weak for other purposes. 
THE PRESERVATION OF CRUSTACEA. 
To preserve crabs, kill them in a dish of weak alcohol, placing a few in at a time 
lest they tear each others legs off in their struggles. When they become quiet, place 
them on separate pieces of cheese-cloth, backs down, fold the legs as naturally as 
possible, wrap them u]>, and tie the packages with soft twine. If any of the legs have 
become detached, as sometimes happens, plaee them in their natural position and wrap 
them up with the specimen. Inject large crabs with 95 per cent alcohol. 
Wrappings may be dispensed with if desired in the case of small crabs, and it is 
always admissible when only a single specimen is placed in a bottle, yet it is good 
lU'actice and but little trouble to wrap them in tissue paper, and if they are prepared 
in tills manner the receptacle may be filled with specimens and 80 per cent alcohol 
turned upon them. 
The various species of shrimp and all the coarser crustaceans may be treated 
practically the same as the crabs; only the larger forms require injecting. 
THE PRESERVATION OF MOLLUSCA. 
All niollnsks may be preserved in alcohol, although it is unnecessary in the case 
of shells that are to be cleaned and dried. The animals may be killed with weak 
aleohol or hot water, and the soft parts removed with hooks or forceps. 
Ascidiaus, octopods, and all of the naked soft-bodied niollnsks are preserved in 
alcohol, first receiving a weak bath, the larger forms only requiring to be injected. 
Specimens of this class should be separately wrapped in cheese-cloth and protected 
from contact ivitli the metal of the tank or each other by a liberal distribution of 
excelsior, tissue paper, or other suitable material. The tanks should not be more 
than half filled until the alcoholic solution permeating the mass has I’eached a strength 
of 75 percent; they may then be filled, iiroviding the specimens will not be injured by 
their own weight. 
THE PRESERVATION OF ECHINODERMS. 
Starfish and sea-urchins may be preserved in alcohol or dried; in either case a 
weak alcohol bath is desirable, as it expels a disproportionate amount of water, 
improves the condition of the specimens, and shortens the process of drying should 
they be preserved in that manner. 
The tanks may be entirely filled with the ordinary hard-shelled sea-urchins, 
using 95 per cent alcohol, but the soft-shelled species require a cheese-eloth wrajiping 
and excelsior protection in the tanks. Hard and firm starfish, like most of the deep- 
sea species, may be rtnnoved from the first bath, piled one upon the other to make 
convenient ]>ackages, wrapped in cheese-cloth, and placed in taidcs with 75 per cent 
alcohol, where they will keep indefinitely. 
The shoal-water S])ecies are usually soft, thickly covered with slime, and much 
distorted when they reach the laboratory. In this case place them in Avater A\"hile yet 
