216 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Specimens can be relaxed by exposing them to steam or hot 

 water. Lepidoptera can be softened and their wings expanded, 

 after having been laid On moist sand for a few days, or confined in 

 a vessel of warm water on the surface of which they can be floated 

 on bits of cork. 



The strongest alcohol is necessary for preserving insects ; and 

 when a bottle has been filled, the old alcohol" should be poured out 

 and kept for other collections, and its place filled by fresh alcohol. 



When the collector has no box with him his captures can be 

 wrapped in papers or stuck on his hat, or in the lining within. 

 Lepidoptera can be very easily laid in papers a little longer than 

 broad, which should be so folded that the opposite corners can be 

 laid one upon the other, leaving a margin on the under side which 

 can be folded upon the upper side, thus making a triangular paper 

 case, in which the insect soon dries. In this way many specimens 

 ean be easily transported. 



Entomological Works. 



The best introduction to American Entomology is the new 

 edition of Dr. Harris's Treatise on Insects. It not onl}'' classifies 

 and describes many of our New England insects, illustrating them 

 with colored engravings and wood cuts in great profusion, but is 

 of special value to farmers, from the great amount of information 

 about the habits of noxious insects. Dr. Fitch's Reports on the 

 Noxious and Beneficial Insects of New York, with some illustra- 

 tions, and accounts of the habits of many insects not especially 

 noticed in the former work, is a very necessary book to have, 

 Kirby and Spence's Introduction to Entomology, and Westwood's 

 Introduction to the Modern Classification of Insects, are still more 

 general works, almost indispensable to the beginner. 



Very many of our American insects have been collected by Euro- 

 peans, and described by their entomologists in the transactions and 

 proceedings of learned societies, which are to be found only in our 

 large libraries. There are also many large and expensive general 

 works, including those of Linna3us, Fabricius, Count Do Geer, 

 Palisot de Beauvois, Drury, Bosc and Coquebert, which include 

 many North American species. 



St. Fargeau, Newman and Ilaliday, in the Entomological Maga- 

 zine ; Smith in the British Museum Catalogues of Ilymenoptcra, 

 and M. De Saussure in his Monographs of the Vespidae, have 



