Almost every collector has his own plan for constructing his cabinet, and displaying his collection. The beginner, if left to himself, will find it a matter of no small difficulty, and many will be the changes before he arrives at one at all satisfactory. Mr. Osbert Salvin has invented a plan which I think as near perfection as it is possible to arrive at, and through his kindness I am enabled to give a brief description of it. In the first place, his cabinets are so constructed that the drawers, of different depths, are interchangeable. This is effected by placing the runners, which carry the drawers, at a fixed distance from each other and making the depth of each drawer a multiple of the distance between the runners. For example: if the runners are three-quarters of an inch off each other, then let the drawers be 1-1/2, 2-1/4, 3, 3-3/4, 4-1/2, &c., inches deep. All these drawers will be perfectly interchangeable, and a drawer deep enough to hold an ostrich's egg can in a few moments be placed amongst those containing warblers': every requirement of expansion and rearrangement will be vastly facilitated, involving none of those radical changes so worrying to a collector.[C] Mr. Salvin's plan of arranging the eggs is equally simple, and admits of any amount of change with very little trouble. Each drawer is divided longitudinally by thin slips of wood into three or more parts, about 4 to 6 inches across, as may be convenient; a number of sliding stages are then constructed of cardboard, by cutting the cardboard half through, at exactly the width of the partition, and bending the sides down to raise the stage to the required height. A section of one of these stages will be seen in Fig. 9, and the arrangement in the drawer at Fig. 10. A number of oval holes are then to be cut by hand, or with a wadding-punch of suitable size (altered in shape by hammering), and a thin layer of cotton-wool gummed on the upper surface of the stage: the holes, of course, should be suitable in size to the egg they are intended to receive. Between these stages sliding partitions must be placed: these should be made of just sufficient height that the horizontal part may fit closely on the wool, as shown at Fig. 9. These partitions should be made of thin wood for the upright part, along which a horizontal strip of cardboard is to be fastened with glue, on which is to be placed a label bearing the name of the species of egg displayed on the stage, as seen in Fig. 10. All this will be better understood by referring to the figures. [C] Of course, cabinets thus constructed will be found equally convenient for collections of bird-skins, fossils, &c. [Illustration: Fig. 9. Section of Sliding Stage.] [Illustration: Fig. 10. Cabinet Drawer on Mr. Salvin's plan.]