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118 THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 
may mention Meduse, Actiniw, various worms, some Crusta- 
ceans and Nudibranchs, Sepia, Sepiola, Loligo, various simple 
and compound Ascidians, Red Gurnard, and other fishes. 
Taking the above facts into consideration, it seems that well- 
stoppered, wide-mouthed bottles, well filled and never opened, 
are fairly satisfactory. The preservation of colours is mani- 
festly a chemical question, and now that the cause of fading 
seems to be known, there is more chance of preventing it, 
‘though it may be difficult to do what is requisite. Of course 
from the beginning I thought that exposure to strong light 
would make many specimens fade, and I, therefore, kept my 
chief preparations in the dark, except when under examination. 
I had a special series made up and protected as well as possible 
from the air, and others exposed to it; both were kept in the 
brightest available sunlight, and a comparison series was kept 
nearly in the dark. In nearly all cases the animals in alcohol 
or 4 per cent. formalin became almost colourless long before 
those in glycerine showed any sign of fading; but I was sur- 
prised to find that when in glycerine and exposed to strong 
light some animals turned dark or altered much in colour. In 
some cases one constituent colouring matter faded and another 
in the same animal did not, thus, as it were, changing one 
natural-coloured variety into another. 
In these experiments my aim was to expose to as strong light 
as available. If such specimens were kept in a museum, and 
exposed to as little light as practicable, there seems no reason 
why the colour should not remain good much longer. Possibly, 
some liquid could be found better than glycerine, but this 
could only be learned by experiments taking a long time. 
Since, according to old authorities, what was thought to 
be a young Centaur was sent from Egypt to the Emperor 
Augustus, preserved in honey, I thought that possibly a con- 
centrated solution of lump sugar might form a good liquid for 
mounting animals. In a number of cases it has answered well, 
the natural colours being preserved, and any leakage soon made 
up by the crystallisation of the sugar. The chief objection is 
that substances dissolved from the animals may cause the syrup 
to turn mouldy at the surface.” 
CATALOGUE OF THE JACKSONIAN OOLOGICAL 
COLLECTION. 
[A REVIEW. | 
One of our members, Mr. H. L. White, of Belltrees, Scone, 
having acquired one of the famous collections of Australian 
birds’ eggs, that of Mr. S. W. Jackson, of Sydney, has issued 
under the above title a handsome quarto volume containing Mr. 
