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Paper bags, carried into the field and inflated, make useful receptacles 

 for gathering live specimens. The wings of large, active species such as 

 the "Monarch" should be clamped together over the back with paper 

 clips. 



Live butterflies may be sent even across the continent by parcel post 

 or express in a large mailing tube or tin can lined with wet blotting 

 paper, sewed securely, through punched holes, to the inner side. The 

 strap-hanging butterfly should have a good foothold, and there should 

 be no loose projecting walls upon which to beat its wings. Never more 

 than two or three live specimens may be shipped together, for they stimu- 

 late one another and are likely to be smashed to pieces. 



Plenty of pure (unsweetened) water should be used in wetting the 

 lining of the mailing tube or other receptacle, which must be kept moist 

 throughout the journey. Five days en route is about the maximum. 

 For a long trip, a tin container should be packed in excelsior to avoid 

 jarring. 



On arrival, the female should be set over a growing food plant, pref- 

 erably potted and in a greenhouse, or insectary, to avoid predatory ants, 

 wasps, mice, birds, etc. The atmosphere in the greenhouse should be 

 moist, or at least never very dry. 



The cage, a wooden frame lined with soft, black netting, should fit the 

 potted plant closely enough so that the butterfly will hover close to the 

 foliage. She is fed conveniently by a bunch of flowers frequently dipped 

 in clean water sweetened slightly with brown sugar to a consistency re- 

 sembling that of maple sap. The bouquet should be kept in a tall, wide- 

 mouthed bottle close to the plant on which she is to lay.* 



For cultures of Colias (= Eurymus), circular patches of white clover 

 turf are cut with a rounded spade to fit a bulb pan 10 or n inches in 

 diameter and 5 or 6 inches high. This is then covered by a cage 15 inches 

 square and 10 inches high. The frame may be made of pine strips 

 i%" x %", supported by corner posts %" square, with the exposed 

 vertical edge of each smoothed off. 



To avoid caterpillar diseases, it is of utmost importance to have the 

 eggs thinly distributed, with not more than one egg to a leaf. If the 

 butterfly is actively flying in the sunlight, there is not likely to be much 

 crowding, but the pot should be rotated 180 when the side toward the 

 sun is sufficiently furnished with eggs. Six or eight pots of clover may be 

 required for the eggs of a single female during the week or fortnight of 

 her laying. 



♦Editor's Note: W. T. M. Forbes says that he has had surest results in obtaining 

 oviposition (with some risk of killing the butterflies by overheating) by covering the 

 butterfly with a glass bell jar with some twigs of the proper food-plant and setting in the 

 sun. Also that in many long-lived butterflies there are no mature eggs when the butter- 

 fly emerges, and there must be a long period of feeding and flying; this is true of angle- 

 wings for instance. M. E. D. 



