HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



217 



ON SETTING AND PRESERVING HYMENOPTERA. 



Br JOHN B. BRIDGMAN. 



AVING been asked to 

 give some instruc- 

 tions as to the 

 method of setting 

 and preserving the 

 aculeate Hymenop- 

 tera, it is with great 

 pleasure I comply, 

 and I hope it may 

 be the means of inducing 

 others to collect these insects. 

 To begin at the beginning, it 

 is almost needless to state 

 that the females of all of them 

 (a few of the ants excepted) 

 are furnished with stings, but 

 with very little care one need 

 never be stung. As Mrs. 

 Glass says, "First catch your 

 hare " : so first I shall give a 

 few instructions where to look 

 for and how to catch these 

 insects. All the apparatus 

 necessary is a gauze ring-net, 

 a cyanide bottle, and a pocket- 

 ful of small card pill-boxes ; the cyanide bottle is 

 best made by wrapping a small piece of cyanide of 

 potassium in two or three thicknesses of blotting- 

 paper, tying it round with cotton to prevent it 

 shaking out, then fixing it to the bottom of a wide- 

 mouthed flat bottle with sealing-wax, which is 

 made to adhere firmly to the glass by heating the 

 glass carefully over a lamp, and then corking it up. 

 The pill-boxes ought to have the tops and bottoms 

 fastened in with liquid glue (a preparation of 

 shellac). These are all that arc required to catch 

 and bring home the game ; which is to be looked 

 for at the flowers of trees, bushes, and plants, — one 

 season's experience will teach the best, as some 

 species frequent one, some another, and some 

 almost all. The flowers I have found the greatest 

 favourites are sallows, willows, sycamore, holly, 

 No. 130. 



blackthorn, bramble, hawkweeds, ragwort, thistles, 

 and umbelliferse. Some bore in putrescent wood, 

 and must be looked for on or in the neighbourhood 

 of old posts and palings ; some are to be found 

 flying about dry banks, hard-trodden pathways, on 

 heaths, while old sandpits are favourite places ; but 

 they should be sought for in any warm, rough, 

 weedy spot ; and some may be obtained by digging 

 them out of their burrows with a trowel. My plan 

 of proceeding, after having got one in the net, is to 

 catch hold of the net so that the insect is inclosed 

 in a sort of sack, I then uncork the cyanide, and 

 introduce that into the sack, holding the net firmly 

 round the neck of the bottle, so that there is no 

 other escape for the insect from the net but into 

 the bottle, then gradually work the insect into the 

 bottle and close the mouth with several folds of the 

 net, watch my opportunity and insert the cork : 

 when the' insect is stupefied, which happens in a 

 few seconds if the bottle is slightly warm, I turn it 

 into the pill-box. A word of caution : it is neces- 

 sary to be methodical in carrying the boxes; I 

 always keep the empty ones in my right-hand 

 pocket and the filled ones in the left-hand one, as, 

 if they are carried sometimes one way, sometimes 

 another, sooner or later a previously filled one will 

 be opened to put an insect in, which will result in 

 the former tenant speedily makiug room for the 

 new-comer, and my experience has been, if you do 

 lose anything it is generally your best capture. 

 Having got home with the left-hand pocket more or 

 less filled, turn the boxes out, preparatory to killing 

 the contents, which must be done with burnt 

 sulphur. My mode of proceeding is as follows : — 

 I stupefy the contents of each box with chloroform, 

 in a manner I will describe further on ; having 

 stupefied them, I empty them all into a short, wide- 

 mouthed round bottle, having a piece of glass tube put 

 through the cork ; the mouth of the tube is plugged 

 with cotton wool, not too tight, to act as a strainer. 

 I then put this in a nabob pickle-bottle (any other 

 bottle will do as well), through the stopper of 



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