The Capture, Preparation, and Preservation of Specimens 
Insect Pests. —\n order to preserve collections, great care must 
be taken to exclude the various forms of insect pests, which are 
likely, unless destroyed and kept from attacking the specimens, 
to ruin them utterly in comparatively a short time. The pests 
which are most to be feared are beetles belonging to the gen¬ 
era Dermestes and Anthrenus. In addition to these beetles, 
which commit their ravages in the larval stage, moths and mites 
prey upon collections. Moths are very infrequently, however, 
found in collections of insects, and in a long experience the writer 
has known only one or two instances in which any damage was 
inflicted upon specimens by the larvae of moths. Mites are much 
more to be dreaded. 
In order to prevent the ravages of insects, all specimens, before 
putting them away into the boxes or drawers of the cabinet in 
which they are to be preserved, should be placed in a tight box in 
which chloroform, or, better, carbon bisulphide, in a small pan is 
put, and they should be left here for at least twenty-four hours, 
until it is certain that all life is extinct. Then they should be trans¬ 
ferred to the tight bo'xes or drawers in which they are to be kept. 
The presence of insect pests in a collection is generally first indi¬ 
cated by fine dust under the specimen, this dust being the excre¬ 
ment of the larva which is committing depredations upon the 
specimen. In case the presence of the larva is detected, a liberal 
dose of chloroform should at once be administered to the box or 
tray in which the specimen is contained. The specimen itself 
ought to be removed, and may be dipped into benzine. 
Naphthaline crystals or camphor is generally employed ffinjji 
to keep out insect pests from boxes. They are very 11 III 
useful to deter the entrance of pests, but when they 1 If 
have once been introduced into a collection neither naph- 11 I 
thaline nor camphor will kill them. Naphthaline is || |I 
prepared in the form of cones attached to a pin, and 1 If 
these cones may be placed in one corner of the box. Ip 
They are made by Blake & Co. of Philadelphia, and are I 
in vogue among entomologists. However, a good | 
substitute for the cones may very easily be made by fig. 72 .— 
taking the ordinary moth-balls which are sold every- Naphthaline 
where. By heating a pin red-hot in the flame of an cone ' 
alcohol-lamp it may be thrust into the moth-ball; as it enters it 
melts the naphthaline, which immediately afterward cools and 
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