In transmitting insects for information the greatest care should be taken to relieve the person of whom information is sought of as much unnecessary work as possible. It is easy for any beginner to collect more in a single day than an experienced entomologist can well mount, study, and determine in a week, and as those who have the means and information to give determinations or otherwise to assist beginners are generally very much occupied, and their time is valuable, they are justified in ignoring miscellaneous collectings where the sender has made no effort to either properly mount or otherwise study and care for his specimens. [Illustration: FIG. 128.--Tin mailing-box, bent into shape for use (original.)] Living specimens, especially larvae, should be packed in tin, with a supply of their appropriate food. The tighter the box the fresher will the food as well as the specimens keep. Insects do not easily suffocate, and it is worse than useless, in the majority of cases, to punch air-holes in such boxes. Dead specimens, when not pinned, may be sent in a variety of ways. Small ones may be dropped into a quill and inclosed in a letter, or a small vial fitted into a piece of bored wood. Those which do not spoil by wetting may be sent in alcohol, provided the bottle is absolutely filled, or, what is better, in sawdust moistened with alcohol, or between layers of cotton saturated with alcohol. The postal regulations permit the sending by mail of "dried insects * * * when properly put up, so as not to injure the persons of those handling the mails, nor soil the mail bags or their contents." Specimens in alcohol may also be sent by mail, provided that the containing vial be strong enough to resist the shock of handling in the mail, and that it be inclosed in a wooden or papier-mache tube not less than three-sixteenths of an inch thick in the thinnest part, lined with cork or other soft material, and with a screw top so adjusted as to prevent the leakage of the contents in case of breakage. Entomological specimens are of the fourth class of mail matter, the postage on which is 1 cent an ounce or fraction thereof, the limit of weight for a single package being 4 pounds, and the limit as to bulk 18 inches in any direction. Saleable matter is also non-mailable at fourth-class rates; so that the safer method, with small packages, is to send under letter postage. It is far better, however, for long journeys, and especially for transatlantic shipment, to send by express. NOTES AND MEMORANDA.