44 Land and Freshwater Animals 



"6. It is inexpensive, and several can be kept on hand ready for instant use in 

 case of breakages." 



A feather, trimmed at tip and edges to the shape and degree of pliancy 

 required, is very useful for holding specimens without injury in any 

 desired position for examination, also, for moving delicate specimens 

 about. Fish culturists have long used a feather for picking over trout 

 eggs on the screens in hatching troughs. For cleaning it is much better 

 than a camel's hair brush. Its hooked barbicels catch and lift the dirt 

 instead of smoothing it down. 



Certain aquatic animals suffer greatly when carried to the laboratory 

 in ordinary collecting receptacles partly or wholly filled with water. 

 These may be transferred from the natural habitat to the laboratory 

 buried in wet sphagnum moss or placed between layers of cloth or paper 

 towels thoroughly soaked with cold water. Towels so used should be 

 spread on the bottom of a collecting container and protected from the 

 light and heat of the sun. The animals should be restored to a proper 

 environment as quickly as possible, and closely watched for a time in 

 order that injured specimens may be promptly removed. 



Aerial insects. For collecting flying insects an air net is needed. 

 Many kinds will be found advertised in the catalogues of dealers in ento- 

 mological supplies. The standard insect net is made with a bag of some 

 kind of netting (No. ooo silk-bolting cloth, voile, bobbinet, marquisette, 

 cheesecloth, etc., according to one's choice) 12" to 18" in diameter, 

 rounded at the bottom, and a convenient arm-length deep. The bag is 

 attached by a topband to a circular rim of stiff wire, affixed to a light 

 strong handle some three feet long.* 



The net must be used with care to avoid injury to delicate specimens, 

 and still greater care must be exercised in handling and carrying and 

 caging them after capture. It is bad treatment of living animals to 

 dump them in numbers into a bare glass or tin container where they 

 cannot get a foothold except by clawing at one another. 



For collecting living specimens of leafhoppers, flea beetles, and other 

 small and very agile insects that are prone to jump out of a collecting 

 bottle every time it is opened, Mr. Milton F. Crowell of North East, 

 Pennsylvania,** suggests fastening a small cone of wire cloth, open apex 

 downward, inside the mouth of a collecting vial. The cone serves as a 

 baffle. He uses a 1" x 3" shell vial. 



"The cone was made by taking a small square of screen and forcing it into the 



♦Directions for making nets and other entomological collecting apparatus may be found 

 in Elementary Lessons on Insects by J. G. Needham, pp. 177-184 (C. C. Thomas, Pub- 

 lisher, Springfield, 111., 1928) and in Fieldbook of Insects by Frank E. Lutz, pp. 7-14 and 

 PI. 3 (G. P. Putnam's Sons, Publisher, New York City, 1935) • The latter also gives 

 some information on rearing methods. 



**/. Econ. Ent. 21:633, 1928. 



