PRESERVING INSECTS. 229 



covered with paper lightly attached to the glass and pierced 

 with pin-holes; this keeps the insects from being lost in the 

 bottle. This is excellent for small flies and moths, as the 

 mouth of the bottle can be placed over the insect while at 

 rest; the insect flies up into the bottle and is immediately 

 suffocated. A bottle well prepared will, according to 

 Laboulbene, last several months, even a year, and is vastly 

 superior to the old means of using ether or chloroform. He 

 states: "The inconvenience of taking small insects from a 

 net is well known, as the most valuable ones usually 

 escape; but by placing the end of the net, filled with in- 

 sects, in a wide-mouthed bottle, and putting in the cork 

 for a few minutes, they will be suffocated." For Dip- 

 tera, Loew recommends moistening the bottom of the 

 collecting box with creosote. Mr. J. A. Jackson recom- 

 mends the use of a glass fruit-jar, one in which the cover 

 screws down upon a rubber cushion or packing. Put a 

 bunch of cotton in the bottom, retaining it in its place by 

 pressing down upon it a circular piece of pasteboard, made 

 to fit tightly in the jar, except that two or three notches 

 should be left in the edge for the chloroform to run through 

 to the cotton. The bottle is now ready for use; an insect 

 dropped into it will die almost instantly. (Can. Ent. xix. 

 119.) A morphine bottle prepared in the same way will do 

 for micros. Ether may be used in the same way, as we are 

 accustomed to do, but chloroform is generally preferred. 

 Prof. E. W. Claypole (Canadian Entomologist, xix. 136) 

 kills Lepidoptera, etc., with benzine or gasoline, the latter 

 only costing fourteen cents a gallon. With most moths it 

 causes instant death, and can be poured on the bodies of 

 large silk- worm moths, such as Cecropia, without injuring 

 the scales or hairs. He carries it in an ounce phial having 

 a cork through which passes a finely-pointed glass tube, the 

 outer end of which is capped with a small India-rubber 

 capsule; the whole may be bought at a drug-store for a few 

 cents, under the name of a dropping-tube. Thus the tube 

 is always full of liquid ready to be squirted out on an in- 



