PRESERVATION OF INSECTS. 365 



sects with growing food, instead either of gathered 

 leaves or branches kept fresh in water ; and we have 

 in several instances, particularly in town, where we 

 could not always procure fresh food for our broods 

 when wanted, kept plants growing in garden-pots, 

 and either confined the insects by means of gauze, 

 or surrounded the pots with water, to prevent their 

 escape. We have since carried this somewhat far- 

 ther, having procured young plants of forest and 

 orchard-trees and shrubs, and planted them in garden- 

 pots, which are plunged, as the gardeners term it, to 

 defend them from drought, and are ready for any 

 experiment we choose to make. These, besides, 

 have the advantage of attracting into the garden 

 where the pots are plunged the insects peculiar to the 

 several trees ; and when we say that the space occu- 

 pied is only about thirty or forty feet in length, by 

 two in breadth, while none of the trees are suffered to 

 get above two or three Ceet high, we apprehend that 

 few persons, who have any garden at all, will find 

 such a plantation unsuitable to their convenience, if 

 they are disposed to such pursuits. Herbaceous 

 plants can, for the most part, be procured and planted 

 at any season they may be required, and hence it is 

 not so necessary to keep any collection of them 

 growing ; whereas the transplanting of trees in 

 summer is most likely to kill them.* 



This plan has, besides, the peculiar advantage of 

 putting it in our power, by means of sufficiently 

 ample gauze coverings, to make moths, butterflies, 

 and other insects deposit their eggs under our eye 

 on the plants or trees on which they would do so 

 when at liberty, — an interesting part of insect history, 

 which, on account of the difficulties of research, is as 

 yet very imperfectly known. 



* J. R. 



VOL. XII. 31* 



