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170
HEINEMAN: European Museums
Vol.7, nos.5-6
"I do not think there is anything more we can really do. It is very distressing to find this very rare specimen is missing.
Yours faithfully,
Ernest Taylor, Chief Assistant."
Needless to say, any information leading to the location of the Thecla bourkei type will be very valuable. We did not come away from Oxford fruitlessly, however, for a short glance through Jones' Icones left us with an insatiable desire to review that unique and sensational book.
Next we went to the Tring Museum, a modern edifice superbly located in delightful surroundings. Its rooms are light, clean, and airy with high ceilings and wide aisles between its long rows of spacious cabinets. The fabulous Dr. Karl Jordan, its curator, is now 92. His daughter told us that he works 6 days a week from 10 mornings to 7 evenings. He interrupted his application to fleas to help us find Papilio thoas melonius and Papilio poly damns jamaicensis, ^foth of which he and Lord ROTHSCHILD had described. We had been unable to locate the types, but he proceeded directly to the drawer containing P. thoas melonius extracting therefrom an insect, on the pin of which was attached an envelope containing its genitalia. This, Dr. Jordan said, was the type—and it has now been so labelled. He insisted that the type of P. polydamus jamaicensis was with the series that had been presented to the British Museum, and when subsequently those insects were reexamined, one was found with an envelope containing genitalia, and this has now been added to the type collection. A dinner date in London caused us, regretfully, to rush off so that we did not even get a photograph of Dr. Jordan.
Mr. C. Bernard Lewis, Curator of the Jamaica Institute at Kingston writes that he has seen, but not captured, some pierids that may be new to Jamaica. We go there in Feb. 1954 with the hope of obtaining some of these butterflies. Our 1955 plans are to return to Europe to continue our interesting studies in foreign museums.
247 Church Street, New York 13, N. Y., U.S.A.
SALMON'S FLUID, A NEW MOUNTING MEDIUM FOR SLIDES OF SMALL LARVAE AND LARVAL PELTS OF LEPIDOPTERA
by Peter F. Bellinger
The study of very small larvae of the Lepidoptera and other groups of insects is a matter of some difficulty. Many minute characters such as the head and body setae are almost impossible to make out with direct illumination and the magnifications available on most dissecting microscopes. Specimens can of course be cleared and mounted in balsam or clarite, but this involves extensive and tiresome handling.
1953
The Lepidopterists' Neivs
171
Several years ago Dr. John T. Salmon of the Dominion Museum in Wellington, New Zealand, described a technique which has proved very satisfactory for small arthropods of all sorts. This mounting medium contains lactic acid, phenol, and polyvinyl alcohol; a number of variations are possible, depending on the qualities desired. Since the description was published in a rather little-known journal and the method does not seem to be well known in America, it seems worth while to call it to the attention of Society members.
The advantages of this technique are as follows: 1. specimens may be mounted directly from water or alcohol of any strength; 2. clearing takes place very rapidly and thoroughtly in the medium itself; 3. the refractive index of the hardened medium is very low, and the definition is far superior to that in balsam (in which fine structures may become transparent to the point of invisibility); 4. mounts, unlike those made with other water-soluble media, appear to be permanent (although the technique has not been in use long enough to make this certain).
DIRECTIONS FOR THE PREPARATION AND USE OF SALMON'S FLUID
1. Prepare lactophenol solution by dissolving 45 g. phenol crystals in 45 cc. lactic acid (heat).
2. Dissolve 2.5 g. polyvinyl alcohol in 10 cc. distilled water.
3. Add 25 cc. lactophenol solution and clear iu water bath.
Steps 2 and 3 may be combined. Clearing may take several hours. The viscosity and other characteristics of the resulting medium will vary somewhat according to the type of polyvinyl alcohol used.
Specimens may be mounted directly from water or alcohol. Slides should be dried on a slide warmer for a day or more; if the medium has a low viscosity it may be necessary to add small amounts of medium at the edge of the cover slip.
Specimens may be cleared immediately by warming the slide over an alcohol lamp; this permits immediate examination of the slide, and also removes any air bubbles trapped under the cover slip. If the specimen contains any considerable amount of air it may be desirable to remove this before mounting; this may be done by attaching a closed vessel containing the specimen to the side of a laboratory water faucet.
Salmon's Fluid will darken if exposed to light; however, this will not affect the visibility of the specimen except perhaps m very thick mounts.
This technique is applicable chiefly to animals which can be reduced essentially to two dimensions. With larger specimens it may be necessary to remove the body contents or to macerate with potassium hydroxide; the latter procedure will also render very heavily pigmented specimens more transparent.
Reference
Salmon, J.T., 1947. New methods of microscopy for the study of small insects and arthropods. Proc. New Zealand Science Congress, 1947: pp. 250-253.
University College of the West Indies, Mona, St. Andrew, Jamaica, B. W. I.