BEETLES, 301 



ing ; if there is any difference, the head should be slightly elevated, hut not enough 

 so as to be noticeable. Some collectors take pains to spread out the antennae, palpi, 

 and legs of their beetles, but this is useless work, and renders these organs more liable 

 to be broken off in handling the specimens. 



Very minute beetles are gummed upon small slips of paper or of mica, and these 

 slips then pinned in the collection. A convenient kind of slip is a narrow triangle of 

 stiff white paper, the triangle about one-fourth of an inch long, and one-sixteenth of 

 an inch wide at the larger end. The beetle is gummed with a mucilage of <mm 



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tragacanth or of shellac neatly across the pointed end of the triangle, which is then 

 pinned through its broad end, and arranged in the collection. 



The cabinets used for collections of insects vary with the taste of the collector : 

 some use boxes arranged on shelves like books, others cases into which boxes are slid 

 as drawers. The essential conditions are that the boxes have a depth of a little over 

 one and a half inches, in order to admit the insect-pins erect ; that the box close very 

 tightly, to exclude museum pests, those little beetles which damage or devour specimens ; 

 and that the boxes be made with very soft wood bottoms, or be lined on the bottom, 

 inside, with cork, felt, pith, or some soft material in which the pins can be stuck with- 

 out difficulty. Specimens should not be kept exposed to light, for many of their colors 

 fade, and in a few years the collection which has been thus exposed loses its beauty as 

 well as its scientific value. Good taste forbids the use of bright-colored surroundings 



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or colored paper to line boxes for an insect collection ; white paper lining exhibits the 

 colors of the specimens best. Insects should be labelled in the collection neatly, and 

 with small labels. Anyone who wishes to study insects scientifically should add the 

 locality of capture on the label of each specimen, and a number by which to refer to 

 a note-book, in which may be recorded the date of capture, habits, food, and other par- 

 ticulars of interest concerning the specimen. 



The thought of observing the habits of beetles leads one quite naturally to a con- 

 sideration of rearing beetles, for by rearing them, and keeping careful notes on their 

 habits, one not only advances science materially, but also derives beautiful specimens 

 for the collection and pleasure from the occupation. Some beetles are easily reared, 

 taking but a few weeks to undergo all their transformations, others require several 

 years for their metamorphoses, and are very difficult, to rear. Even in Europe, where 

 entomology has been longest and most thoroughly pursued, only a small proportion of 

 all the species of Coleoptera have been reared, and their earlier stages observed. In 

 other countries still less has been done. Without elaborate directions, filling many 

 pages, it is impossible to explain the devices used to rear beetles ; the only general 

 directions that can be given are to keep the immature beetles in conditions that are, 

 as far as possible, the same as those in which the same species live in a free state. To 

 establish and maintain these conditions in breeding-jars, or in other places where the 

 different stages of the insect can be observed, requires much skill, and adds pleasure 

 to successful beetle-raising. Fungus, bark, decayed wood, dead twigs, acorns, nuts, 

 and in fact almost any vegetable substances collected at certain seasons of the year, 

 and put into fruit-jars, the contents of which should be now and then somewhat moist- 

 ened, avoiding an excess of moisture, which often causes mouldiness, will disclose 

 beetles whose larva? feed on the substances put in the jars. The leaf-feeding larvae of 

 beetles usually attain full growth in a short time, and are conveniently bred under a 

 bell-glass, or tumbler, inverted over a plant-pot full of slightly moistened earth. The 

 larvae of water-beetles are reared, without much difficulty, in small aquaria, feeding 



