40 
ON PRESERVING FUNGI 
A microscope for the examination of spores, etc., coloured 
illustrations of fungi, and the textbooks in general use are 
placed on the tables. Many young friends are zealous in 
keeping the exhibition going, bringing in large consignments 
on half-holidays. A special fungus foray takes place annu¬ 
ally, and is always well attended. 
PRESERVATION 
Firm, woody fungi may be easily preserved. For this 
purpose specimens showing traces of incipient decay or 
insect attacks must be avoided. They should be dried in 
an oven, or on open trays suspended above a coke stove, 
and when thoroughly dry be put away in boxes, care being 
taken to put a lump of albo-carbon in each box as a pre¬ 
ventive against attacks by certain minute insects that are the 
terror of all herbarium makers. The best boxes for the 
purpose are shouldered glass-topped ones, obtainable from 
any dealer in natural history material. Full data should 
accompany each specimen, or it may carry only a number 
securely fastened to it, the particulars being posted up in a 
memoranda book. Albo-carbon can be obtained from an 
ironmonger. It evaporates quickly, and should be renewed 
three or four times a year. To be absolutely preserved 
against insects all specimens must be poisoned. This may 
be done by dipping them in a bath of corrosive sublimate 
and alcohol in the proportion of i ounce of the former 
dissolved in a quart of the latter diluted 25 per cent. Hold 
them for a few seconds in the bath, using a pair of tweezers 
—not your fingers—and, after allowing them to drip, place 
them on paper on the drying-tray. They may be dried in 
the sun, in an oven, or over a coke stove. Children should 
not be allowed to poison their specimens. 
Soft fleshy fungi cannot be preserved except in alcohol or 
formalin, a proceeding which, for considerations of space, 
