198 APPENDIX. 



Drawers like these are rather hirge for small collections, 

 but any smaller size is wasteful of sjDace for arranging the 

 larger species of wide expanse of wing. Some, however, 

 still prefer smaller sizes for convenience of study, and use 

 boxes shaped like a quarto volume, the cover hinged and 

 the whole lined with binder's cloth. The volumes can 

 then be lettered on the back and arranged as in a library, 

 and certainly have a neat appearance. Such books can be 

 made safer either by a bevelled wooden rabbet where the 

 top and bottom meet, or by arranging within a second 

 glass cover, but they can never be made so fully proof 

 against pests as an unhinged drawer. 



A very common box, but unsafe as soon as a collection 

 becomes at all large and cannot be constantly watched in 

 every part, is a simj^le wooden box nine by fourteen inches 

 in size, in which both top and bottom, made separate, are 

 put to use by being lined with cork. In this case the box 

 must, of course, be much deeper. Such cases can be made 

 in numbers for fifty cents each, exclusive of the cork, and 

 answer very well for beginners, but will be discarded after a 

 time if the collection increases, unless the owner has suffi- 

 cient leisure and patience to watch his treasures carefully. 



The best way to begin the study of butterflies is to 

 attempt to follow out the life-history, write the biog- 

 raphy, in short, of every kind found in one's own neighbor- 

 hood. No one place will yield much above one hundred 

 species, and, if the rarer kinds be omitted, not nearly so 

 many. Yet any one who will accomplish this will add 

 materially to what is known, and he will find his way 

 pleasanter, his occupation more fascinating at every step. 

 He need be provided at the outset with a very moderate 

 stock of the articles mentioned in the preceding pages. 

 He should keep a journal devoted exclusively to a record 

 of his daily notes, which will prove more and more useful 

 in each succeeding year. Beginning with the eggs laid by 



