TIHIIE 



OF 



DAY BUTTERFLIES (RHOPALOCERES.) 



THE IMPLEMENTS NECESSARY. 



The first and of course principal thing necessary is a bag-net, (See Fig. XI, 

 Plate I,) this can be made, to answer all practical purposes, as follows: the 

 rim you can make by bending a piece of strong iron wire to form a hoop, 

 twisting the two ends together and filing them sharp that they may be driven 

 into the end of a handle, or, if the collector be inclined to luxuriousness, and 

 does not wish to excite the interest of the intelligent mob by carrying so curi- 

 ous ;m implement through the highways on his journey to the glades and 

 woods, he can have the ends soldered fast to a ferrule of sheet iron or tin, which 

 can be put over the end of the handle when he gets without the city pre- 

 cincts ; until that time the net can be carried under the coat, and the handle 

 will serve conveniently for a walking stick, also as a preventative to the too close 

 intimacy of canines. To the iron rim there should be affixed a bag made of 

 fine strong gauze mosquito netting from which the stiffening has been well 

 washed will do; this bag should be eighteen to twenty inches long, and the 

 bottom bound with a strip of muslin which is to be fastened to the iron rim, 

 the diameter across this rim should be eleven or twelve inches. The handle 

 should be about as long or a trifle longer than an ordinary walking-stick, 

 if much longer it becomes unwieldy, though practice will make one perfect 

 in anything, except living without food or sleep, and if a person should 

 become handy with a long handle to the net, of course the advantage is ob- 

 vious. 



Nets are made in various other ways besides that described ; in some the 

 rim folds up in sections, in others it is made of steel and can be coiled up like 

 a watch-spring, (see figs. XII, plate I,) all with the one object that they 

 may be put in some big pocket to be out of sight until we are in the 

 fields, for in this enlightened land a man can easily earn a reputation for 

 lunacy if he lets it once be known that he is a butterfly hunter or any other kind 

 of hunter except a money hunter; but if the collector be of moderate means, 

 or of no means at all, as is the case with the writer, then a home-made one 

 constructed as I have described will answer all purposes satisfactorily, and if 

 he be ambitious to practice with a long handle, one of those fishing rods that 

 are in sections, fitting into one another, will answer excellently. 



Besides the net you should be provided with some strong pasteboard or 

 light wooden boxes, lined at bottom with cork, of a size convenient to carry 

 in the pocket; these boxes are to put your specimens in as fast as you catch 

 them. 



