The first thing a collector thinks of when a species of any kind is obtained is the identifying or determination. The Smithsonian Institution at Washington, D. C., or the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia, Pa., will always determine specimens sent them for that purpose. In sending out specimens for naming be generous. Send all that you can spare—and perfect specimens too, as it is impossible to make a positive determination from weathered, worn or broken specimens. Don’t ask that the specimens be returned to you, but present them to the institutions or individuals to whom you sent them for naming. Besides the institutions named above there are many of our prominent naturalists who make a specialty of conchology and will name any specimens sent to them for determination. One thing I wish to warn the beginner against is submitting his collections to an amateur and depending on his labeling. This was one of the “verdant” things of which I was guilty.
The beginner in land and freshwater shells will probably vote such a pursuit as “slow” when he first commences. After making a few exchanges and seeing the diversity of form, color, and sculpturing, he will become interested and begin making comparisons. He is then on the right road to knowledge, and as he adds species after species to his collection from land, river, or lake and sea, the hobby will grow on him and it will not be dropped when entering a business life as is the case with postage stamps and eggs, but the collection will be kept up and give many an hour’s recreation when worried with the cares of life.
Another advantage of such a collection is that you don’t offend those æsthetic people who are horrified at the idea of collecting birds and eggs and give us “fits” for “murdering” and “robbing” the poor birds. To tell the truth, after years of collecting and becoming “hardened” to it a guilty feeling sometimes comes over me when taking a set of eggs.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
MINERALOGY.
For The Hawkeye O. and O. THE SCIENTIST.
BY H. F. HEGNER, DECORAH, IOWA.
But now he stands upon the sandy beach with the breakers in sight, his eyes attracted to the sea weeds and pearly shells at his feet. He is interested, and examines them carefully. Some of the shells he finds inhabited, and, as he is a naturalist, is soon acquainted with each specific form, and has a learned name for it. But he also finds a real architect in the delicate tinted coral branches at his feet. Around the head and mouth of this little creature, serving as arms for obtaining food, he finds a number of tentacles. “Nature has given you a goodly work to do, little architect,” cries the naturalist, “and these tentacles are well adapted to your animal wants. Polypus is many armed, and henceforth, most scientifically, your name shall be polyp!”
And then he begins a pleasing study. Zoophytes he finds everywhere, spreading their beautiful architectural works along the continental borders.
He crosses the stormy Atlantic, weighing the mighty power that drives the storm. On, on through the quiet Indian ocean, the phosphorescent Indian ocean, naming and collecting myriad living forms, until he reaches the beautiful Polynesia, where, spread out in the tropical sun are the coral reefs—monuments of submerged islands—with an epitaph to the departed written in living characters around each placid lagoon.