GENERAL NOTES 
41 
Take a batch of skulls of the same size and place them in soft water — use dis- 
tilled water if that from the tap is hard. Soak an hour for shrews and the smallest 
bats, six hours for mice, twelve for rats, and twenty-four for larger forms. They 
should be soaked slightly longer during cold weather than in summer, or in a 
warm room. Next prepare a one per cent solution of hydrogen peroxide — two 
parts of water and one of the commercial product, — put the skulls into a small 
covered pan and pour on just enough of the liquid to float them. Place on a 
stove and time from when the boiling point is reached — three minutes for shrews 
and small bats, eight or ten minutes for mice, fifteen for rats, and longer in 
proportion for larger species. One must not fail to cook skulls of juveniles for a 
shorter time than those of adults. At the expiration of the cooking period, place 
the pan under a trickle of cold water until fully cooled. Remember never to 
douse cold skulls in hot water nor hot skulls in cold. The skulls, especially the 
larger ones, may be left for twenty-four hours as they now are, but I always like 
to begin work on them at once. The instruments which I have found to be of 
most help in the actual cleaning are two knife blades, one of them the smallest 
which can be procured, and the other a trifle larger fine tv/eezers, fine scissors, 
and an embryo hook or bent pin for removing bits of brain. The rest is patience, 
perseverance and great care. 
By this method I can clean a dozen or more small skulls an hour, and so per- 
fectly that not one zygomatic arch in a hundred will be broken, nor a lower jaw 
disarticulated. If I cooked them longer, I could do much faster work, but the 
sutures would be loosened, and I would not have any skulls of mine cooked to the 
point where twenty-five or thirty could be cleaned in an hour. 
If these instructions are followed, the skulls will dry out as white as one could 
wish, the smaller ones especially, absolutely free from blood stains, all sutures 
firm and in such condition that they should last indefinitely. Also, there is no 
chemical present to work possible harm, for the peroxide is more of a mechanical 
mixture than a chemical one. In the case of skulls of coyote and larger, it is 
probably advisable to soak in melted paraffine and dry in a moderate heat. This 
closes the pores and prevents the teeth from splitting, but it will detract some- 
what from their appearance. Skulls may be bleached snow white, but in a large 
working collection, this is hardly advisable, for the sutures are then almost 
invisible, and comparative work is done with considerable difficulty. 
— A. Brazier Howell. 
WHY SHOULD EVERY SPECIMEN BE NAMED? 
The desire on the part of museum curators and others to identify and label 
the specimens that come into their possession is natural and commendable, but 
like many other good things may be carried too far. 
In the course of my personal experience — and doubtless the same is true of 
others — I have been urged by professional naturalists to name specimens which 
to my mind were unidentifiable, A name was demanded to put on the label, 
and the mere fact that the specimen could not be satisfactorily identified was 
set aside as of minor consequence. The cry was, ‘‘What are you going to call 
it? Give it a name. What name shall we write on the label?’’ And I have 
known naturalists of reputation, in revising groups, to write names on the labels 
