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To Preserve Natural Flowers

Dip the flowers in melted paraffine, withdrawing them quickly. The liquid should be only just hot enough to maintain its fluidity, and the flowers should be dipped one at a time, held by the stalks and moved about for an instant to get rid of air bubbles. Fresh-cut flowers, free from moisture, make excellent specimens in this way. has had the gentle pressure necessary to keep it in position. Let them remain so for a short time, and then put some heavy weight on them; look at them next day, and change the damp paper. Ferns may be kept for years quite fresh in color by this simple mode of drying. In 3 or 4 days the plants thus treated should be taken out, together with the paper in which they have been deposited, and laid in fresh paper with 3 or 4 sheets between every 2 plants, and the board and weights laid upon them as before. This process must be continued till the plants are perfectly dried.

Each specimen is then to be placed on a sheet of dry paper, along with a memorandum of the name of the plant, the place and time at which it was gathered, the character of the soil from which it was taken, and any other particulars tending to illustrate its character and history. 6176. To Collect and Preserve Specimens of Plants. To form what is called the hortus siccus, or herbarium, various methods are employed, but the following is recom- for the microscope, such as parasites and aca: i

6179. Το Mount Small Insects for the Microscope. Mounting small insects mended as the most simple. The articles re- from birds, beetles, &c., may be performed by. quisite for the purpose consist of a dozen placing the live insect on the inside of a sheet quires of smooth soft paper of a large size, 6 of tolerable good note paper, folded, and when boards of about an inch in thickness, and 4 in the act of running, closing the paper and iron or lead weights, two of them about 30 pressing it tightly in a book. By this means pounds, and the two others about half that the legs and antennæ may be nicely extended, weight, and a botanical box of tin, and of such all the expressed moisture absorbed by the dimensions as shall be most convenient for the paper, and the skin left apparently unbroken. collector. The plants to be preserved ought, It should be allowed to remain in the book if possible, to be gathered in dry weather; about 2 days, when it may be carefully rebut if the weather be wet they should be laid moved from the paper, put in a turpentine out for some time on a table till partially dried, and when the roots are taken up along with the stems, they must be washed and then exposed to the air for the same purpose.