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- Directions for Collecting - Hard matters such as bones, horns, shells rocks or specimens of minerals, should be packed, so as not to chafe. A small barrel is the best casing for them, paper hay or straw, is much better than sawdust or sand. Alcoholic specimens, particularly insects, (not caterpillars, worms or grubs) such as beetles, flies bugs and centipedes; Shells particularly small ones, from rocks or kelp, fish of small size and wild mice or rats or squirrels of all kinds, should be put in bottles and packed in oakum or paper, in a box. Mind from the edges of pools or lakes, above all where it is scummy and green, should be dried and put in paper with careful note of the locality. Fine threadlike, green or brown seaweeds should be dried without washing and put up in the same way, these things often contain the most beautiful microscopic, organisms, called Diatoms. Birdskins are particularly valuable, and should be made by a small opening in the skin only; of the belly, skinning down a little, cutting off the legs wings, and neck under the skin, and getting the body out first, and each limb and the head separately. Plenty of arsenic should be dusted on with a little ball of oakum, particularly around the head, and the back of the skull sliced off enough to take out the brains, the skull thus cleaned should remain attached to the skin, and the oakum dust ball stuffed into it. The skin should have a little