To prepare the very thin sections necessary for detailed study of the hide, more complicated methods are required. Small slips of hide, not exceeding 1/4 in. wide, and cut exactly across the lie of the hair, are placed first in weak alcohol (equal parts methylated spirit and water), and, after a few hours, are removed into strong methylated spirit. It is then kept for some days in absolute alcohol, which must be repeatedly changed, until the hide is hard enough to give fine shavings, and may be cut either when held as above described, between cork or pith, or when embedded in paraffin wax. This is accomplished by placing the piece of hide in a little paper-box and covering it with melted paraffin (candle), which is just beginning to stiffen. The piece of hide may be fixed in position with a needle, which must of course be withdrawn before cutting. When hard, the paraffin is shaved away till the object is exposed, when it may be cut. The razor must be wet with alcohol, and the section be made exactly in the plane of the hair-roots, which may be seen with a hand-lens. (The use of a microtome for hide-sections is rarely successful, as it is almost impossible to fix the fragment of hide so that it is cut exactly with the hairs.) The slices may now be stained by placing them in a watch-glass with water and a few drops of the logwood or picrocarmine staining-mixtures sold by opticians, and afterwards either examined in glycerin, or, after soaking some hours in absolute alcohol, may be transferred to clove-oil, and afterwards to a slide, and covered with a drop of dammar varnish or Canada balsam dissolved in chloroform. The sections moistened with glycerin may also be mounted in Farrant's solution or glycerin jelly, under a cover-glass for permanent preservation. If picrocarmine be used, the connective-tissue fibres (gelatinous fibres) and the nuclei of the cells will be coloured red, and the cells themselves of both epidermis and glands, together with the muscles and elastic fibres, will be yellow.