COLLECTING AND CURATING FRUITS AND SEEDS. 57
mounted as transparent instead of as opaque objects for the
microscope. I mean the dust-like gauzy seeds possessed by our
native orchids, to which I have already referred, as well as
by some other plants of very different families. The technique
is quite simple, the difficulty being to know the ripe from the
unripe, but I must not enter into these questions now.
I have but little to add. I have steadily advocated liberality
in the provision of space because of the paramount necessity
of maintaining easy accessibility, which depends so entirely
upon elasticity that the latter must be put first before such
considerations as economy of space. Such liberality also effects
economy of time, and in the long run of money too, which is,
from the point of view of the advancement of knowledge, not
always to be preferred to efficiency and method.
The cost can be spread over the years if need be, but I should
favour a certain although no very great amount of initial outlay.
A catalogue and a record-book must, of course, be provided,
and by way of a start I would suggest three of the black boxes
and a gross of the large white, plus the additional six that will
be required to make up the 150. A gross of the smaller white
should also be bought. There are, it is true, whole families for
which few or none of them will be wanted, but on the other hand
the Compositae require a good many. It will be a long time before
the whole gross will be wanted for the collection, but they will
be found very handy for collecting. Of the pill-boxes, I would
suggest at least a gross of the smaller and half a gross of the
broader and shallow ones ; neither of these is of any good for
collecting purposes.
It is difficult to suggest a starting number for the green
boxes, except to say that probably three of them will prove
amply sufficient for the first year or two, and that the starting
accommodation that I have suggested for the other kinds of box
will probably last quite as long, but, of course, that depends
upon the keenness and opportunities of the collector, whether
he confines himself to what he has himself harvested or includes
specimens from other sources, and his strictness in admitting
nothing that is not thoroughly mature and correctly named
beyond all reasonable doubt.
Now while it is an easy matter to re-arrange the contents
of the other sections from time to time, the difficulty with the