absorbing and releasing essentially the same quantity of specimen remains unimpaired and functional the amount of fibre to be deposited for forming the flocked layer in accordance with the invention is determined on the basis of the type of fibre and the pre chosen layer characteristics of thickness and fineness in such a manner as to enable 100 microlitres of specimen to be absorbed in accordance with the objects of the invention the fibre is chosen from a wide range of materials provided they are hydrophilic by capillarity such as for example synthetic or artificial materials e g rayon polyester polyamide carbon fibre or alginate natural materials e g cotton and silk or mixtures thereof some preparative examples are now given of a swab according to the invention such examples are not intended in any way to limit the scope of the invention a swab is prepared using a plastic rod suitable for human clinical collection of diameter 2 5 mm which decreases to 1 mm over a length of about 6 cm the tip of the part with the smallest diameter is dipped in or sprayed with an adhesive then the rod is placed vertically in a flocking apparatus in electrostatic field to deposit a polyamide flock the polyamide flock of 0 7 mm length and 1.