Several sets of glass-top pill-boxes carried in the ‘hare’-pocket, or in one of the pockets of the game-bag, to which they can be transferred when filled.
A pickle pot in Willesden canvas or basket-work cover with handle, half filled with spirits, for collecting small snakes, lizards, frogs, scorpions, etc.; to be carried by the first bearer, who should be instructed how to hunt for reptiles, etc.
If possible, a beetle-killing bottle should be added to the above impedimenta, and may be carried in the left-hand breast-pocket of the coat.
A Norfolk coat is a most useful article of clothing, and should be provided with a deep ‘hare’ pocket running round the skirt and divided in the middle.
After a very short time the collector will be able to find any article he may require by instinct, and without loss of time. To have a pocket for each article, and to know where it is, saves an infinity of trouble.
At daylight the traps should be visited, and any specimens to be preserved should at once be sent back into camp.
Collecting should always, if possible, be vigorously prosecuted during the early morning hours, when birds, etc., are feeding, and are much more easily procured.
When butterflies and thick-bodied moths are placed in the killing-bottle, care should be taken to see that they die with their wings turned the ‘right way,’ i.e., with the underside outermost. Those which die with the upper side outermost should be at once reversed with the aid of a pin or the sharp-pointed forceps, and then replaced in the bottle. If not attended to at once they become rigid, and the wings get rubbed and spoilt before they are quite dead.
Where and what to collect.—The countries which are now the least known with regard to their natural history are New Guinea and some of the large islands to the east of it, East Sumatra, the highlands of Mindanao and other Philippine Islands, Formosa, Tibet, Indo-China, and other parts of Central Asia, Equatorial Africa, and Central South America. A special interest attaches to the indigenous products of oceanic islands, i.e., islands separated by a deep sea from any large tract of land. Those who have opportunities could not fail to make interesting discoveries by collecting specimens of the smaller animals (insects, molluscs, etc.,) and plants in these isolated localities. Both in continental countries and on islands the truly indigenous species will have to be sought for on hills and in the remote parts, where they are more likely to have escaped extermination by settlers and the domestic animals introduced by them. In most of the better-known countries the botany has been better investigated than the zoology, and in all these there still remains much to be done in ascertaining the exact station, and the range, both vertical and horizontal, of known species of animals and plants. This leads us to one point which cannot be too strongly insisted on, namely, that some effective means should be adopted by the traveller to record the exact locality and date of every specimen he collects.[12]