20 ON CLEANING SPECIMENS. 



all the grease gone, or, if any traces of the latter still remain, give it another 

 benzine bath ; should the wings, after it is dry and the benzine evaporated, 

 appear a little curled or bent, put it into the slack pot (hereafter described) 

 from twelve to twenty-four hours, or longer if necessary, then fasten on set- 

 ting block with card board stretched across the wings ; let it remain on the 

 block three or four days, then take it off and pin in its place in the cabinet, 

 and you will have no cause to complain of the result of your labour. 



ON RELAXING AND EXPANDING SPECIMENS. 



Where specimens are received in papers, with the wings folded, or badly 

 set, or on pins with the wings pointing four ways for Sunday, they should be 

 treated in the following manner : 



A large earthen pot is needed, what the housewife calls a butter-pot is the best; 

 this is about 10 inches in diameter and 6 or 7 deep, and has a lid to cover it; 

 of course if you can't get this kind any other crockery-ware thing will do, 

 but this is the most convenient in size and shape, being of as great diameter 

 at bottom as at top. Into this you put 2 or 2J inches of clean white sea sand, 

 kept by the grocers and called silver sand; do not get it too fine, it is better 

 a little coarse, that which is used to saw marble is the best. Pour in 

 water enough to permeate through and through it, but not enough 

 to make a slop or to stand on top of the sand,* then smooth the sand over 

 and lay thereon two thicknesses of clean white paper, (don't use paper that is 

 printed on). On this you lay or pin the examples that need softening, then 

 put a couple of pieces of paper over the top of the jar or pot outside, and put 

 the lid on, working it around a little that it squeezes the paper into the joint 

 and fits tight, this paper under the lid is to make a tight joint, as the lids of 

 crockery articles are not proverbially tight fitting ; stand the pot in a dry, 

 cool place, (but not where it is cold enough to freeze) ; if it be too warm the 

 examples are liable to mould, and to relieve specimens of Lepidoptera of 

 mould, without injuring them, is impossible; a piece of gum camphor laid 

 in the pot, or a small vial of creosote stuck in it in the sand will act as a 

 partial preventive to mould. Let your pot stand twenty-four hours in 

 peace, don't lift the lid and look in every half hour, but when twenty-four 

 hours have clasped, look at the specimens, try gently if the wings can be 

 moved in any position ; if easily moved, take the examples out of the pot and 

 expand on setting blocks, according to the same directions previously given 

 for expanding and drying specimens freshly caught ; but with these dried 

 specimens, it is not neccessarv that they remain on the setting blocks 

 more than two or three days to be fully dried and fit for the cabinet ; in fact, 

 with the smaller ones you will have to be quick while fixing them on the 

 blocks lest they dry before they ought to ; it is best to set them on the blocks 

 in a cool room, a damp cellar would be excellent to expand such specimens 

 in, but not to let them stand in after they are expanded ; to dry properly 

 they should be put in a dry moderately cool room in a closet with gauze over 

 the doors or in a skeleton box covered with gauze or else merely set on edge 



*You need not afterwards add anv more water for several months. 



