MODE OF ARRANGING SPECIMENS. 
277 
our scientific friends ; but the practice has now become 
almost general. It is simply arranging the birds in 
drawers, as shells or minerals are kept ; the specimens 
of each genus being jilaced together, and laid in rows 
upon carded cotton. The cabinets, of course, should 
be thoroughly well made, and the drawers of different 
depths. The large birds, indeed, or those of the size 
of a goose, are kept in chests ; but all others, if pre- 
served upon the hooded or contracted plan already 
alluded to (225.), may be contained in a cabinet by 
themselves, the drawers of which should be from three 
to one inch arid three-quarters deep, the length about 
nineteen inches, and the breadth eighteen inches. That 
the collector may form an idea of the great advantage, 
merely as regards space, that attends this mode, we shall 
just mention the following fact. An oak cabinet is now 
before us, of the following dimensions : — four feet 
seven inches high, three feet three inches broad, and 
nineteen inches deep ; it contains thirty-six drawers, in 
two tiers, each drawer measuring in the clear, two inches 
one-tenth in depth, eighteen inches in hreadth, and six- 
teen and a quarter inches in length.* In this cabinet 
are contained no less than 6T4 specimens, few of 
which are small; the birds chiefly belonging to the 
woodpecker, parrot, toucan, cuckow, hawk, pigeon, and 
other middle-sized families. One, two, or even three 
such cabinets, may he arranged in our common-sized 
rooms as articles of furniture, the fronts of the drawers 
being protected by folding doors, with brass lattice work 
over purple silk. 1000 or 1500 birds will take the 
collector some time to acquire ; and he may by this 
means have them compactly, and even heautifuUy, ar- 
ranged in his hbrary or drawing-room, without any 
risk of the plumage being injured by the light (a cir- 
* This cabinet was originally made for mincmls, and all 
are of equal depth. If a similar siz^ one was made expressly for oiraSj^we 
should recommend that four of the drawers were two inches 
deep in the clear, ten two and two-tenths of an inch, * 
twelve one inch and three-quarters, ten one inch and a halt, total to^ 
drawers, making the entire neight much the same as that just mentioned. 
T 3 
