NOTES ON COLLECTING, ETC. 241 



on which a specimen is going to be set. In every batch of pins there 

 will always be a large proportion utterly unfit for use, owing to one of 

 the following defects : (i) crooked shafts, (2) hooked points, (3) points 

 too blunt, (4) points too fine, and certain to bend before long ; and 

 black pins should always be rejected unless entirely coated with 

 enamel. When asked the question, "Where do you get your excellent 

 pins from ?" my answer is always the same in substance : " Probably 

 the same place as you do, only on no account do I ever set a specimen 

 on anything but as perfect a pin as it is possible to get." My plan for 

 sorting them out is extremely simple : on a perfectly smooth sheet of 

 cork, covered with white paper, I roll each pin with a finger of the 

 left hand, whilst in the right I hold a powerful lens directed on the 

 point of the pin ; unless the shaft is quite straight throughout, the point 

 " wobbles ■' when rolled on the board, and any other defect is easily 

 seen. Different batches of even the same sized pin from the same 

 makers vary very greatly in quality, and oftentimes an enormously 

 large percentage has to be thrown away as imperfect, but some of the 

 rejected pins can be utilised in the process of setting, for holding 

 down braces, cross-pinning, antennae, etc. The only objection that can 

 be urged is that the selection of pins takes up time, but one gets 

 quick at it after a little practice, and I maintain that it is time well 

 spent, and that an insect might as well be destroyed at once as set on 

 a bad pin ; and, after all, it will be seen that the process cannot be 

 a very lengthy one when I mention that I frequently sort the pins and 

 set out from 150 to 200 moths — mostly, of course, and often all, 

 micros — in from five to seven or eight hours (averaging about thirty 

 in the hour), that I have before now killed, sorted out pins, and set 

 in the same morning 100 micros by 8.30 a.m., and that at one time 

 this season there were over 1,700 moths on my settmg-boards at once, 

 all bred, cr taken, and set by myself within the previous ten or twelve 

 days ; it is only fair to add that all my specimens are set to the very 

 best of my abihty. Anyone with a few spare hours in the winter or 

 early spring might utilise them in sorting out some pins so as to save 

 time in the season, and the result would well repay the trouble. One 

 must remember that the only fair test of a good pin (or, for the matter 

 of that, of a good moth !) is whether one would be glad to have it in 

 one's own cabinet, and all that are not quite up to that standard 

 should be rejected at once. — Eustace R. Bankes, The Rectory, Corfe 

 Castle. August 2)^t/i, 1892. 



I have just arrived at a crisis in my opinion about pins, having 

 hitherto always used the silvered pins, as I prefer the look of them, 

 but having a fine crop of verdigris growing on the thoraces of some ot 

 my best " mfernal feeders " (to quote Dr. Knaggs' humorous friend), 

 I have decided to go in for " the best black enamelled." My favourite 

 sizes have always been Kirby, Beard's No. 10 for most CiEOMETR^ 

 (under the size of ^elenia i/iustraria, for instance) ; No. 9 for most 

 Noc'iUiT"., such sizes as i^copelosonia satellitia, etc. No. 4 for Ardia 

 caja, etc. No. 2 for Sphingid/E. — E. Augustus Bowles, Myddelton 

 House, Waliham. 



Parasites on Geoirupes stercorarius. — Last August at Cromer I 

 found a specimen of G. stenoran'us which seemed to have an unusual 

 number of parasites {Gamascus coleopiratorum) upon it. These I have 



