This book seems to have been printed about 1885. I got my copy when I was still a teenager (nth-hand; I am not really as old as all that!) and have greatly enjoyed the enlightened, yet practical and down-to-earth attitude of the writer. It seems to me a fine example of late Victorian instructional material of the unpretentious persuasion. Some of Browne's views were ahead of his time in terms of compassion and conservation, so I urge modern readers not to sneer at what they see as his out-of-date interest in "stuffed animals". Nor should they take too patronising an attitude to Browne's long paragraphs and occasionally strained concordances; he was not a professional writer and he produced a fine, readable, and useful work. Both to the biologist and historian of science, the book remains useful to this day, and, as books of that period disappear for good, I hope, in scanning it, to prevent a sorry loss to our generation and to those who follow us. Though I nowhere edited his wording or punctuation in any other way, no matter how much self-control this occasionally demanded, I did split a lot of paragraphs, especially when they spanned pages and confused lines of thought.
In transcribing this book I have generally kept as truly to the original as I could, including when Browne's (or possibly his editors') conventions for the use of quotes and parentheses set my teeth on edge. However, for lack of convenient font characters and sophistication of scanning software, I have converted most of the vulgar fractions to decimals. The others I have represented with slashes, so that say, a value of one third might appear as 1/3. Similarly, I have split ligatured characters such as the ligatured "ae" and "oe" frequent in late Latin in particular. Also, following a practical and common convention, I have replaced the umlaut with a following letter "e". Thus "Möller" becomes "Moeller".
Browne frequently cross-referred readers to pages in the book. As pages got changed in scanning and editing, I have changed such page references mainly to chapters or similar references.
There were several places where changes (generally advances, I hope!) in technical biology, or possibly slips that Browne made in matters outside his speciality, led to errors. I have not corrected these in the text of course, nor do I discuss many of them. After all, most readers who can recognise the errors in modern terms do not need my assistance in correcting them, and to the other readers they would hardly matter. Here however are comments on a few arbitrarily chosen points, in no particular sequence:
- Browne seems to have worked before hydrogen peroxide became
generally available, or possibly before its bleachng powers were
recognised. For bleaching most biological specimens, especially bones
and the like, hydrogen peroxide is in every way better, less offensive,
less corrosive, and less damaging to tissues, than hypochlorite.
Soaking even badly yellowed teeth in say, a "five volumes"
concentration (about 1 to 2%) of peroxide for a few days or weeks,
whitens them beautifully without damage or rotting of tissues.
You might find that other peroxide compounds, such as perborates,
work better still, but I have not yet had occasion to use them.
Other methods of bleaching only are worth trying when the specimens
happen to contain a particular pigment that does not respond well
to peroxide bleaching. Some such pigments are better bleached with
other chemicals, such as sulphites or hypochlorites.
- It takes some trawling through the book to discover that by
"mites" in insect collections, Browne probably means "booklice",
i.e. Psocoptera.
- Earwigs (Dermaptera) are not Hemiptera, as Browne
classed them. Dermaptera and Hemiptera are not even closely
related. The error is an interesting one however. It presumably
arose from a nineteenth-century confusion of the hemelytra of the
Hemiptera, with the short tegmina, the covering fore-wings of the
Dermaptera, that protect their hind wings when they are not in
flight. Hemelytra of Hemiptera are not really half-wings anyway, but
protective fore-wings armoured for only about half their length.
The two orders do not even resemble each other in appearance,
anatomy, habits or ecological significance.
- Browne uses a few terms not easily to be found in every
dictionary nowadays. Dowlas is (was) a coarse kind of linen, but
probably Browne referred to a strong calico in imitation of such
linen. For "filister" read "fillister"; according to more or less
contemporary dictionaries, it is a misspelling. It turns out to
be a type of rabbet plane used in making window frames and
similar structures.
- For setting insects on a setting board, I was slightly surprised at
Browne's use of "braces" and the like. Nowadays everyone I know uses
strips of smooth, non-sticky, translucent paper or similar material for
the purpose, and I had not realised that any other methods had been
used in the past. The use of such strips is easy, fast and effective.
It permits one to set large numbers of insects almost in an assembly
line fashion, working from the far end of the board towards oneself,
laying the tape over the wings, blowing or gently dragging the wings
into position, pinning down the tape, and proceeding to the next insect.
- If you get a small fish alive, then there is absolutely no
way to set it more perfectly than by dropping it alive
into rather strong acetic acid. This is not generally practical
for say, a large salmon, but for anything of manageable size, it
leaves the gills, jaws, and fins fully and stiffly extended.
Strong formaldehyde has a similar effect, but not as good.
Immediately the specimen is stiff and dead (a few seconds at
most) remove it from the acid and rinse it gently with clean,
cold water, then transfer it to a solution of ammonium carbonate,
lime water, or similarly gentle alkaline material, to neutralise
the acid before proceeding with whatever means of preparation you
intended. See also the means I describe for preventing acid
damage.
- If you happen to use hypochlorite or any other compound that
releases chlorine, and you then wish to remove the residues,
first rinse your specimens clean as well as is convenient, then
soak them in very weak peroxide for a while. Hypochlorite and
peroxide react with each other to produce free oxygen (harmless)
and chloride (also harmless in any plausible concentrations).
The effect is to neutralise any harmful or irritating residues or
smell of chlorine.
- In at least one place I was surprised to see that Browne
speaks of pinning insects exactly through the middle. Nowadays
this is not widely done because one risks damaging structures on
the median line of the specimen. Instead the common convention is
to pin specimens somewhat to the right of the median, so that
anything damaged on the right can generally be seen undamaged on
the left. When setting beetles or the like, this usually means
pinning them through the right elytron. Commonly one then may set
the specimen with the left elytron and wing spread. Not all
beetles will permit this of course, as many flightless species
have their elytra fastened down, and some, such as many
Scarabaeidae, flip their flying wings out pen-knife-like without
noticeably raising the elytra.
- No doubt the non-toxic soaps and so on that Browne describes
do work as advertised, but for keeping pests of dried material at
bay, for protecting hides, preserved insects and so on, do not
copy the recipes from this book. Though many of Browne's
observations are in every way practical and intelligent, our
current knowledge of safe, persistent, effective insecticides
would not emerge for some fifty or sixty years after his death.
And, please, please! Though Browne was realistic in his
assessment of the dangers of the chemicals he describes, bear in
mind that even his precautions were insufficient for modern
purposes. Above all, be very wary of the mercurial recipes he
mentions!!! It is true that mercuric chloride is very effective,
but I cannot think of a single modern reason to use it. Today we
have much safer, more appropriate, materials at our disposal,
including some very effective fumigants that Browne would have
coveted.
- Note that among the substances that Browne fails to warn us
against, are those that certainly are of low acute
toxicity, but present serious risks of chronic medical conditions
or cancer, unrecognised in his day. His much beloved "benzoline"
seems to have been largely benzene, which nowadays is regarded as
a carcinogen, and for many purposes too dangerous to handle.
Before this became generally known I personally handled benzene
in totally unacceptable ways, but so far I seem to have been
lucky, and I seem to have given up tempting fate before I
incurred dangerous symptoms.
- Browne seems to me a bit too cheerful about high-pinned insects
being protected from some museum pests. High pinning might help a
little, but it most certainly is nowhere near adequate. I have
seen entire cases reduced to labelled pins standing among Dermestid
beetle frass. Use modern insecticides and carefully sealed drawers
or cases. I like the new pyrethroids, but keep in touch with museums
to be sure you know the best current means of protection. Grease
from pinned insects has caused me less of a problem than Browne
describes, but possibly that is because I always have used the
high-pinning techniques, never having known any other.
- When it comes
to setting insects Browne was no doubt very artistic and very
competent at producing a presentable specimen no matter what, but
some of his procedures for cheerfully snipping insects and
re-assembling them should be avoided. Such expedients could ruin
specimens intended for the use of professional entomologists.
For the requirements of biological studies, it is far more important to have
a fully genuine specimen, no matter how badly disfigured, than a
hopefully reconstructed mosaic, no matter how artistic.
For some purposes one could use more radical "relaxing" procedures instead.
Browne seems to have used only cool water vapour or sometimes water
itself. Careful application of hot steam can relax most specimens
that otherwise could not be re-set. One good trick (Beware of the
risks of cuts and scalding if your apparatus should burst!) is to boil
water in a closed vessel, leading the
steam out into a tube, preferably of silicone rubber, tipped with
a drawn glass tube or the blunted needle of a syringe. Direct
steam at the parts of the specimen that need relaxing. With practice you often
can relax legs or wings one at a time, stopping as soon as they
reach the desired position.
- Note too, that Browne is cheerful about mounting some insects
by gumming their feet (tarsi) to card. For entomological purposes
this has severe disadvantages. Nowadays professionals hardly ever
use any means of setting that prevent one from examining a
specimen from all sides. Even mounting them on a transparent
material tends to interfere with proper examination. For most
purposes pin the insects using what Browne called "flat" setting,
high on the pin, with the label beneath. Where this is not
practical, such as for tiny specimens, there are other methods,
which you may see described in manuals or used in museums.
- Note: Browne wrote in pre-decimal days, using largely the
so-called Imperial units. This might raise difficulties in
understanding his quantities. E.g. his dram or drachm (drm)
probably was 0.125 ounce (roughly 3.5 grams). His pound would be
sixteen ounces (oz.) of 28.35 grams, but his pint would be
twenty fluid ounces (not 16 as in American pints!)
Correspondingly his gallon would be ten pounds, not
eight. A grain would be about 65 mg. Of other units and utensils
apparently common in Browne's day, such as "six-pound Australian
meat tins", or "goffering-irons", make what sense you may. A
"wine-bottleful" was probably about 700 cc.
- Note: I have had little use for hexavalent chrome compounds but
one thing I did notice in experimenting with a few of Browne's
recommendations ("bichromates", "chromic acid" etc), is that the
merest few drops of such compounds (typically as a solution of potassium
dichromate or chromate) added to water containing soft creatures such
as molluscs, generally will kill them gently by paralysis and
leave them relaxed. Usually almost anything else one uses, short of
illegal or expensive drugs, causes such specimens to distort or
contract into useless lumps. Once the chromate has thoroughly killed
and relaxed them, say after an hour or two, the specimens can be fixed,
preserved, or manipulated as required. You may wish to compare this
method with the method that I describe for killing molluscs with
boiled water.
- One effective way of killing molluscs, particularly
gastropods, snails and the like, whether terrestrial, freshwater
or marine, in fully extended form, is to put them into cool
or barely lukewarm, freshly-boiled water that has been
kept closely covered in airtight containers for
cooling without permitting a lot of oxygen to re-dissolve in the
water. First rinse the live specimens in fresh water to clean
away superficial dirt and slime, then submerge them in the
de-oxygenated water. Place some sort of grid or other barrier to
ensure that they cannot get near the surface, and re-seal the
container to keep air out. Leave them for at least
twenty-four hours before transferring them to a preservative
fluid or otherwise proceeding to deal with them. This method
leaves them fully extended and firm, ready for dissection or for
preservation for display. If you remove them too soon, they at
first seem dead, but contract say, when a scalpel stimulates a
still-living nerve.
- The cyanide bottle for killing insects certainly could be
very useful, though I am not certain how widely such a dangerous
substance would be available nowadays. Many forms of killing
bottle have been used in the last century or so, and several are
described in many handbooks. An old favourite handbook of mine is
the British Museum Instructions to Collectors (Insects). Most
killing bottles depend on some volatile liquid soaked into
plaster, rubber or cotton wool. My
own favourite was ethyl acetate, which is safe, inoffensive, and has
several advantages, as long as the bottle and fluid are kept free from
moisture. Dry ethyl acetate anaesthetises most insects very quickly, even
if the paralysed insects take some time to die.
For some reason the presence of water
seems to reduce the effectiveness of ethyl acetate at quickly
immobilising specimens.
For example, unlike many popular components of
killing bottles, ethyl acetate leaves dead specimens relaxed.
- When you have treated wet specimens with anything acid, do
remember to neutralise the acid residues as soon as possible. The
same applies if you have preserved them with anything that
gradually produces acid; For example, formaldehyde gradually
reacts with oxygen to produce formic acid. In due course it
destroys shells, and even fine bones and teeth. As a buffer,
ammonia is cheap, effective and safe in reasonable circumstances.
However, it is too volatile to be a reliable buffer against long
term acidity. Specimens preserved in formaldehyde can be
protected in the long term by adding hexamethylenetetramine
(otherwise known as hexamine, the product of ammonia and
formaldehyde) to the liquid. A practical proportion is to add 100
grams of hexamine to a litre of concentrated formaldehyde
solution (formalin). This one dilutes before use, according the
particular application. If you cannot get hexamine, you can use
strong ammonia (about 36%) solution, about 150 ml to 1 litre of
formalin. In preparing
to use such formalin, allow for the fact that in adding the ammonia you
diluted the formalin by about one sixth. Alternatively, though usually
less effectively, you could add some ammonium carbonate or sodium
bicarbonate to the container. Sometimes a little oyster-shell grit
or chalk will do for long-term buffering; it can be used together
with the hexamine and can go on working after the hexamine is exhausted
if the collection is poorly maintained. Use your good sense in adapting
your measures to your needs.
Jon Richfield