48 A Contribution towards the Knowledge of the
number of the tube, may be placed, so as to show its
contents and facilitate reference. A larger pair of forceps,
with broad flattened points, is necessary for placing the tubes
in the bottle, and for taking them out when the spiders are
required for examination.2
"Spiders preserved after the above method are certainly
not objects of beauty, like a collection of moths and butter-
flies ; for, though the colours and markings are usually well
enough preserved, the legs are often crumpled up a good
deal. To the 'Goodness gracious' sort of naturalists they
are by no means acceptable. The only remark my collection
elicited from one of this kind was, 'What a lot of bottles!'
A little extra trouble, however, in the preparation of a spider
will render it worth noticing even by indifferent persons.
When stupefied with chloroform, or killed by a short immer-
sion in spirit, the spider should be placed on a piece of cork
fixed to a thin layer of lead; a few pins at various points
(not through the spider, but between the legs and outside the
body) will keep it in a natural position ; the whole is then
placed in a clean empty jar or basin (a preserved-meat pot is
one of the best receptacles I know of), sufficient spirit is
poured in to immerse the spider, and the cover is put on.
In a fortnight or so the action of the spirit will, if it be pretty
strong, have stiffened the specimen, which must then be
placed carefully in a tube sufficiently large to receive it with-
out too much compression of the legs ; a small strip of white
card should be slipped in behind it, the tube be filled up with
spirit, and corked (or, better still, stopped with a pledget of
cotton-wool) and inverted in a larger bottle, as recommended
above. The spider's name may also be written on paper or
parchment, and inserted in the tube. Prepared in this way,
and ranged on narrow shelves, the spiders may be seen
without removing the tubes from the bottles, and they
present a very neat and sightly appearance even to the most
indifferent observer.
Where to look for Spiders.
"The places in which spiders are found are very various,
and no situation wet or dry, high or low, should be left
unsearched. In the winter and spring months moss and
debris of all kinds, such as heaps of grass, cut rushes, fern,
dead leaves, brush-wood, and decaying faggots, should be
carefully searched, the collector shaking out these various
materials over a newspaper, when many a rare species of
2 Experience has proved that a good black-lead pencil is better for
writing on labels, for insertion in spirit, than ink.—O. P. C.