The Capture, Preparation, and Preservation of Specimens 



For large moths and butterflies cyanide of potash and carbonate 

 of ammonia serve very well, but it must be remembered that 

 carbonate of ammonia bleaches insects which are green in color. 

 It is well, in my judgment, to use a drop or two of chloroform in 

 the jar charged with carbonate of ammonia, for the collection of 

 diurnal lepidoptera. By putting a few drops of chloroform into 

 the jar, the insect is anesthetized, and its struggles are made 

 quickly to cease. The principal objection to chloroform is the 

 fact that it induces rigidity of the thoracic muscles, 

 which subsequently sometimes interferes with 

 handsome setting. 



In the preparation of the poisoning-jar it is 

 well to use a jar which has a ground-glass stop- 

 per, and the mouth of which is about three inches 

 in diameter. This will be large enough for most 

 specimens. The one-pound hydrate of chloral jars, 

 provided with glass stoppers and sold by Schering, 

 make the neatest collecting-jars that are known to 

 the writer. I have found it well to have such jars 

 partly covered with leather after the fashion of a 



FIG. 46.-Cya- 



drinking-flask. An opening in the leather is left rated cardboard; 

 on either side, permitting an inspection of the 

 contents of the jar. The leather protects from 

 breakage. At the bottom of such a jar a few lumps of cyanide 

 of potash, about the size of a filbert, should be placed. Over 

 this may be laid a little cotton, to prevent the lumps from rat- 

 tling about loosely at the bottom of the jar. Over the cotton 

 there is pasted a sheet of strong white paper, 

 perforated with a multitude of holes. In securing 

 the white paper over the cyanide, the writer has 

 resorted to a simple method which is explained 

 in the annexed diagram. A piece of paper is 

 placed under the jar, and a circle the size of the 

 FIG. 47. Piece of inside of the jar is traced upon it. Then a disk 



paper punctured and . , ,, r . , 



slit for pasting over !s cut out about three quarters of an inch greater 

 the cyanide in the i n diameter than the original circle (Fig. 47). The 



collecting-jar. . r , j 



paper is punctured over the entire surface included 

 within the inner line, and then, with a scissors, little gashes are 

 made from the outer circumference inward, so as to permit of 

 the fold''ng up of the edge of the disk. A little gum tragacanth is 



29 



