660 Collecting and Rearing Insects 



preservation. Nests, galls, stems, and leaves partly eaten by insects, and 

 other dry specimens can be kept in small pasteboard boxes. 



Where and how to collect. The principal points about where and how 

 to collect will be obvious even to the veriest novice. Go where the insects 

 chiefly congregate, and collect them in the most effective way. But some of 

 the insect haunts may not be known to the beginner nor at first catch his 

 eye, and there are little tricks about collecting in the most effective way. 

 "The most advantageous places for collecting are gardens and farms, the 

 borders of woods, and the banks of streams and ponds. The deep, dense 

 forests and open, treeless tracts are less prolific in insect life. In winter 

 and early spring the moss on the trunks of trees, when carefully shaken 

 over a newspaper or white cloth, reveals many beetles and Hymenoptera. 

 In the late summer and autumn, toadstools and various fungi and rotten fruits 

 attract many insects; and in early spring, when the sap is running, we have 

 taken rare insects from the stumps of freshly cut hard-wood trees. Wollaston 

 says: 'Dead animals, partially dried bones, as well as the skins of moles 

 and other vermin which are ordinarily hung up in fields, are magnificent 

 traps for Coleoptera; and if any of these be placed around orchards and 

 inclosures near at home, and be examined every morning, various species 

 of Nitidulae, Silphidae, and other insects of similar habits, are certain to be 

 enticed and captured.' 



" Planks and chippings of wood may be likewise employed as successful 

 agents in alluring a vast number of species which might otherwise escape 

 our notice; and if these be laid down in grassy places, and carefully inverted 

 every now and then with as little violence as possible, many insects will be 

 found adhering beneath them, especially after dewy nights and in showery 

 weather. Nor must we omit to urge the importance of examining the under 

 sides of stones in the vicinity of ants' nests, in which position, during the 

 spring and summer months, many of the rarest of our native Coleoptera 

 may be occasionally procured. Excrementitious matter always contains 

 many interesting forms in various stages of growth. 



" The trunks of fallen and decaying trees offer a rich harvest for many 

 wood-boring larvae, especially the Longicorn beetles; 

 and weevils can be found in the spring, in all stages. 

 Numerous carnivorous coleopterous and dipterous 

 larvae dwell within them, and other larvae which eat 

 the dust made by the borers. The inside of pithy FlG - 806. Water - net. 

 plants, like the elder, raspberry, blackberry, and 



syringa, is inhabited by many of the wild bees, Osmia, Ceratina, and the 

 wood-wasps, Crabro, Stigmus, etc., the habits of which, with those of their 

 Chalcid and Ichneumon parasites, offer endless amusement and material for 

 study. 



