182 INSTRUCTIONS FOR COLLECTING INSECTS. 



among tlie insect world in its manifestations of strange, wonderful, 

 ridiculous forms, and their mode of ornamentation and clothing. But 

 here, as elsewhere in the animated world, we have expressed in vital 

 characters the thoughts and conceptions of a living God. 



It is imperatively necessary to entomological science that the habits 

 and transformations of larvae should be studied and known, and their 

 forms and ornamentation well described. The study possesses these 

 advantages over most other departments of natural history, that it 

 can be pursued during leisure and unoccupied time, its inexpensive- 

 ness, and the abundance of the objects to be observed. In the trust that 

 many into whose hands these instructions will fall may become ob- 

 servers and students of Lepidoptera, and being conscious that to the 

 novice everything in this connexion is of value, the attempt will be 

 made to anticipate much that may embarrass him. 



Those who delight to ramble in ibrests and green fields during 

 the genial days of spring and the cool mornings of summer for " air 

 and exercise," little know how much pleasure and profit result from 

 such rambles when undertaken with some definite object in view. 

 Things which were before unmeaning or unquestioned become the 

 subjects of inquiry and information when that object is connected 

 with natural history, and every field and hill side, every shrub and 

 plant becomes the theatre of startling scenes of life and death, of 

 artifices and devices more incredible and wonderful than the most 

 fanciful creations of fairy lore. With observation thus kept con- 

 stantly on the alert, the student will have but little difficulty in finding 

 the objects he seeks ; but we will help him by pointing out such indi- 

 cations of the presence of larvae as may at first escape his attention. 

 The early morning is the most favorable time to seek for the cater- 

 pillar, which seems to prefer its food moistened with dew, although 

 they may be found during any other portion of the day. When they 

 cannot be at once seen, their presence is indicated by finding their 

 ' 'frass' ' or ejectamenta beneath the plants on whicli they feed ; by partly 

 eaten leaves, or leaves contorted and rolled into cylinders and cornets 

 and secured by bands of silk, or superimposed and bound together in 

 the same manner; by the existence of a hole surrounded with "frass" 

 in the pithy stalks of various plants, or in subcortical mines near the 

 roots of various trees and shrubs ; in the stems and leaves of various 

 grasses, or living in portable cases on the leaves of plants, or within 

 houses, feeding on various articles of food and apparel ; or by the 

 existence of discolored patches on the surface of the leaves of various 

 plants and forest trees, the oaks, the linden, the beech, the iron wood, 

 the elms, the hickories, the sycamore, &c , caused by minute leaf 

 mining caterpillars freeing the epidermis in the process of feeding on 

 the parenchyma, or feeding on grains and the seed heads of composite 

 plants, on lichens and fungi. Besides the lepidopterous leal miners 

 there are coleopterous and dipterous miners, whicli are rather difficult 

 to distinguish from the former; in general, however, the dipterous 

 larvae are more maggot-like in appearance, and the coleopterous leaf 

 miners, in many instances, stain the whole surface of their mines 

 with their "frass," which appears to have been dissolved, whilst 

 that of the lepidopterous larvae is in little pellets. There is, how- 



