164 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Rearing CalerpiUars. The larvae of butterflies are rare ; those 

 of moths occur more frequently, while their imagines may be scarce. 

 In some years many larvse, usually rare, at other times occur in 

 abundance, when they should be reared in numbers. In hunting for 

 caterpillars bushes should be shaken and beaten over newspapers or 

 sheets, herbage should be swept carefully, and trees examined care- 

 fully for leaf-rollers and min&rs. The best specimens of moths and 

 butterflies are obtained by rearing them from the egg if possible, or 

 from the larvse or pup^e. In confinement the food ohould be kept 

 fresh, and the box w^U' ventilated. Tumblers covered with gauze, 

 pasteboard boxes, pierced with holes and fitted with glass in the 

 covers, or large glass jars, are very convenient to use as cages. 

 The bottom of such vessels may be covered with moist sand, in 

 which the food plant of the larva may be stuck and kept fresh for 

 several days. Larger and more airy boxes, a foot square, with the 

 sides of gauze, and fitted with a door, through which a bottle of water 

 may be introduced, serve well. The object is to keep the food plant 

 fresh, the air cool, the larva out of the sun, and in fact everything 

 in such a state of equilibrium that the larva would not feel the change 

 of circumstances when kept in confinement. Most caterpillars 

 change to pupse in the fall ; then they should be covered with 

 earth, kept damp by wet moss, and placed in the cellar until the 

 following summer. The collector in seeking for larvas should carry 

 a good number of pill-boxes, and especially a close tin box, in which 

 the leaves may be kept fresh for a long time. The different .forms 

 and markings of caterpillars should be noted especially, and they 

 should be drawn carefully, on a leaf of the food plant, and the 

 drawings and pupa skins, and perfect insect, be numbered in the 

 same way. Descriptions of caterpillars cannot be too carefully 

 made or too long. The relative size of the head, its ornamentation, 

 the stripes and spots of the body, and the position and number of 

 tubercles, and the hairs, or fascicles of hairs, or spines and spin- 

 ules, which arise from them, should be noted, besides the general 

 form of the body. The lines along the body are called dorsal, if in 

 the middle of the back, subdorsal if upon one side, lateral and 

 ventral when on the sides and under surface, or stigmatal if includ- 

 ing the stigmata or breathing pores, which are generally parti-color- 

 ed. Indeed, the whole biography of an insect should be ascertained 

 by every observer ; the points to be noted are : — 



1. Date, when and how the egg is laid; and number, size and 

 marking of the eggs. 



