PRESERVING AND REARING INSECTS. 243 



plies the needed amount of oxygen. In such aquaria 

 aquatic larvae and insects can be studied with great con- 

 venience. The addition of some water-plants adds greatly 

 to the beauty of these aquarial pictures. (Proc. Ent. Soc. 

 Washington, i. 37.) 



REARING INSECTS IN GENERAL. 



More attention has been paid by entomologists to rearing 

 caterpillars than the young of any other orders of insects, 

 and the following remarks apply more particularly to them, 

 but very much the same methods may be pursued in rear- 

 ing the larvre of Neuroptera, beetles, flies, and Hymen- 

 optera. Subterranean larvae have to be kept in moist earth, 

 aquatic larvse must be reared in aquaria, and carnivorous 

 larvse must be supplied with flesh. The lame of butter- 

 flies are usually rare; those of moths occur more frequently, 

 while their imagos may be scarce. In some years many 

 larvae, which are usually rare, occur in abundance, and 

 should then be reared in numbers. In hunting for cater- 

 pillars, bushes should be shaken and beaten over newspapers 

 or sheets, or an umbrella; herbage should be swept, and 

 trees examined carefully for leaf-rollers and miners. The 

 best specimens of moths and butterflies are obtained by 

 rearing them from the egg,* or from the larva or pupa. In 



* Lepidoptera lay on the average from 100 to 700 eggs: those of 

 butterflies should be looked for on the herbs, bushes, or trees about 

 which they fly; those of sphinges on the flowers apt to be visited by 

 them. The eggs will be fouml after patient search by turning up the 

 leaves of willows, azaleas, and other plants. As a rule a butterfly or 

 moth follows a path or fence side when laying; so upon finding the 

 first egg or larva we more minutely examine each shrub, for they are 

 very apt to lay an egg on each prominent one as they go along. " And 

 it is not difficult to "follow the path of the parent for quite a distance; 

 and so the finding of one egg means almost surely the finding of 

 more." G. D. Hiilst (Bull. Brooklyn Ent. Soc., ii. 13.) 



The same is the case with the search for rare caterpillars; our best 

 breeders of rarities search patiently by turning up one leaf after 

 another for them. For want of time, and especially when the branches 

 are high, we use a stick and umbrella, and beat the branches or leaves 



