Some prefer to keep their collections in well-made store boxes, which possess many advantages over the cabinet; for example, they may be kept like books in a bookcase, the upright position rendering the contents less liable to the attacks of mites; they are more readily referred to, and are more portable, and they admit of our gradually expanding our collections to any extent. Cabinets, on the other hand, are preferred by many, for the reasons that they are compact and generally form a handsome article of furniture; moreover, good cabinets are made entirely of mahogany, which is the best wood for the purpose; deal, and other woods containing resinous matter, having a decidedly injurious effect on the specimens. As a preservative, there is, after all, perhaps nothing better than camphor; but it should be used sparingly, or its tendency will be to cause greasiness of the specimens. V. BEETLES. By E. C. Rye, F.Z.S., etc. The general rules, so ably expounded by Dr. Knaggs in his instructions for collecting _Lepidoptera_, as to constant alertness and making "the reason why" the starting-point of investigation, apply with equal force to the collector of _Coleoptera_, and need not be here recapitulated. But they do not, in the instance of the latter, require generally to be observed, except as to the perfect state of beetles; for, owing to the hidden earlier conditions of life of most of those insects, and to the long period during which these conditions exist, it is but seldom that the pursuit of rearing them, so universally and profitably adopted by the Lepidopterist, is found of much use to the collector of beetles. And this is very much to be regretted; because, in the majority of cases, if the latter succeed in rearing a beetle from its earliest stage, and keep proper notes of its appearance and habits, he will probably be adding to the general stock of knowledge, as the lives of comparatively few, even of the commonest species, are recorded from the beginning. It may be, also, in addition to the reasons above mentioned, for the usual want of success attending the rearing of beetle larvæ, that the fact of bred specimens being frequently (from the artificial conditions attending their development, and from their not being allowed that length of time which, in a state of nature, they require after their final change before they are ready to take an active part in their last stage of life) not nearly so good as those taken at large, militates considerably against the more general use of this method of adding to a collection. In this respect, of course, the Lepidopterist is actuated by precisely opposite motives; as for him, a bred specimen is immeasurably superior to one captured. And the fact of so few beetle larvæ being known at all, or, if known, only to the possessor of somewhat rare books, renders it very likely that a mere collector, finding a considerable expenditure of patience and