[63] 



( OLLECTING AND PRESERVING INSECTS RILEY. 



FIG. 90. Bottle 

 with liquid 

 cyanide. 



wooden boxes \vhicli are kept by every druggist; and a touch of the 

 chloroform ou the outside of the box immediately stupefies them. It 

 lias a tendency to stiffen them, however, and they are best 

 set immediately after death." 



A piece of heavy blotting paper or heavy cloth soaked 

 with chloroform or ether or benzine and placed at the bot- 

 tom of a jar or bottle makes an excellent killing bottle 

 for large-sized insects. For smaller specimens the collecting 

 vial should be half filled loosely with narrow strips of soft 

 paper, upon which a few drops of the liquid are poured, 

 not so much, however, as to wet the paper. While collect- 

 ing, the vial must be kept closed as much as possible. 

 Some collectors prefer chloroform, others ether. If this 

 method of killing is practiced with the necessary care^ there 



is no objection whatever to it; 

 the specimens are not wetted as 

 they are in alcohol, and remain 

 cleaner than those killed by any other 

 method. The drawback is that the sub- 

 stances mentioned evaporate very rapidly 

 and have to be renewed even on short ex- 

 cursions. On account of this great volatil- 

 ity, one can never be certain that all the 

 specimens in the collecting bottle are dead 

 after a given time and there is always some 

 danger that one or the other of the hardier 

 insects may regain activity. TVhat mis- 

 chief such revived specimens are capable 

 of doing, many collectors have experienced 

 to their sorrow. Another disadvantage of 

 these volatile substances is that if used in 

 too large quantities they will, in delicate 

 specimens, especially beetles, cause an c\ 

 tension of the soft ligaments between the 

 head and prothorax or between the latter 

 and the mesothorax, and thus bring the 

 specimen into an unnatural position, or cause 

 the head, or head and thorax to drop off. 



Cyanide of Potassium. The method of 

 killing which, of late years, has found most 

 favor with collectors, is the use of cyanide 

 of potassium. For killing large sized speci- 

 mens they are simply put in what is now 

 universally known as the " cyanide bottle." This may be constructed 

 as follows : 

 Take a 2-ouiice quinine bottle, or still better a shorter bottle with a 



FIG. 91. The Cyanide bottle with 

 paper strips to give support to 

 the insects. 



