flf|t Caiuitlian mntomologbt* 



Vol. XXXI. 



LONDON, APRIL, 1899. 



No. 4. 



A SERVICEABLE INSECTARY. 



BY F. M. WEBSTER, WOOSTER, OHIO. 



With the constantly increasing activity in applied entomology in 

 America, the necessity for rooms or apartments especially adapted for 

 the study of the development of insects is becoming each year 

 more imperative. The insectary has, in fact, become almost as 

 necessary to the working entomologist as has the laboratory to the 

 chemist. While it is especially true in entomological investigations that 

 one must " study nature where nature is." it is equally true that one 

 cannot, in all cases, watch with the necessary care and constant appli- 

 cation in the fields that he will be able to do in a fairly well equipped 

 insectary. Not only can forms be transported thousands of miles while 

 in an inactive state and their development watched at close range, as it 

 were, but eggs and larvae may be brought in during late autumn or 

 winter and studied through their various stages, frequently long before 

 they have appeared outside ; and in cases of uncommon or unfamiliar 

 forms this will give the investigator a vast amount of information that he 

 can use to great advantage when the species appears in the fields under a 

 natural condition, perhaps months later. 



In the following it is not the intent of the writer to present an 

 illustrated article on a "model" insectary, but to describe one that is in 

 actual use, and the evolution of which has been the direct result of that 

 mother of all invention — necessity. When any demand for certain 

 facilities in order to study any particular species of insect has arisen, and 

 this has constantly been the case, the ingenuity of myself and my 

 assistant has been drawn upon to devise the best methods of accomplish- 

 ing this end, and thus our insectary at the Ohio Agricultural Experiment 

 Station has come into existence. The only object in presenting this 

 paper is to place in the hands of working entomologists some ideas in 

 regard to an insectary and its equipment, from which they can deviate as 

 their position and requirements may demand. In other words, it may be 

 used as something to work from in their efforts to get that which will best 

 suit their requirements. 



