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HINTS TO YOUNG ENTOMOLOGISTS ON CATCHING, KEEPING, 

 AND BREEDING INSECTS. 



By James Charles Dale, Esq., A.M., F.L.S. 



Some time ago you requested me to give you, for The Naturalist, a few hints 

 as to the apparatus used by entomologists, and as some of your friends may be 

 inclined to climb the mountains or explore the lake country during the next sea- 

 son, I send the following extracts, &c, for that purpose, and hope your corres- 

 pondents will give me a fine list of rare captures in return. 



The entomologist should first consult Dr. Letsom's Naturalist's and Traveller's 

 Companion, Donovan's Instructions, Harris's Aurelian and other works, 

 Graves's Naturalists Pocket-Book, Kirby and Spence, Miss Jermyn's Fade 

 Mecum, Curtis's Instructions, Samouelle's General Directions and Useful 

 Compendium, &c. I have Ingpen's Instructions interleaved, and a few blank 

 leaves at each end for a list of rare insects, with the dates, localities, &c, as a 

 pocket companion. 



The first thing is the dress. — A plain sportsman's fustian jacket, with numer- 

 ous pockets, not omitting the side or breast pocket for forceps or little bag-net, 

 which is made of a single wire-hoop bent into a circle, and the ends formed into 

 a handle, and which I think preferable to the forceps, especially for taking in- 

 sects in a gravel-pit, where I lost with the forceps the first Chrysis succincta I 

 ever saw, from a stone getting between the rings of the forceps. Mr. Tuther 

 formerly told me of a light-green coat with fifteen pockets for nets, &c, but a 

 large fustian-bag for your nets, umbrella, &c, and an angler's basket for your 

 boxes, vasculum (for sandwiches), and whiskey-flask (no bad accompaniment 

 on the mountains) ; Jarvis's India Rubber Polish, for thick shoes, to make them 

 waterproof, or anti-attrition ; a horn for drinking, or smoking insects ; a tin case 

 of Cocoa-powder or paste for breakfast ; knee-caps for moss hunting, or a little bit 

 of board with a cushion to kneel on in damp places. If you intend to ride on 

 horseback any distance, it would be well to send your heavy luggage with the 

 large corked box or setting-boards, cages, &c, by coach, to the inn nearest the 

 locality you mean to collect, to await your arrival. You may then mount your 

 horse, equipped with your lighter apparatus, such as you may be in want of 

 before your arrival at the inn. Put your long nets, sticks, &c, into a long 

 canvass-bag or a tin box like a quiver for arrows, with lock and key and rings, 

 through which you may sling it on your back like a gun. 



All the travelling store-boxes, cages, nets, &c, should be made as portable as 

 possible, and so as to fit each other in packing into the smallest compass, and it 

 would be well if one screw or spring clasp fitted all the net sticks. 



