ENTOMOLOGICAL INSTRUMENTS, &C 543 
renders it desirable, in order to avoid the damage or de- 
rangement occasioned by pressure, to transfix them with- 
out it. To dispatch these effectually, you will find the 
following apparatus very convenient. Fix in a small tin 
saucepan a filled with boiling water, a tin tube consisting 
of two pieces b that fit into each other ; cover the mouth 
of the lower one c with a piece of gauze or canvass, and 
place your insects upon it ; then fix the upper one d over 
it, and cover also the mouth of this with gauze, &c. ; and 
the steam from the boiling water will effectually kill your 
insects without injuring their plumage. There is another 
more simple mode of doing this, the apparatus for which 
may be met with every where. Fix a piece or two of 
elder, willow, or any soft wood, with the bark on, across 
the bottom of a mug, and on this stick your impaled in- 
sects ; invert the mug in a deep basin, into which pour 
boiling water till it is covered, holding it down with a 
knife, &c, that the expansion of the included air may 
not overturn it. In two minutes, or* less, all the insects 
will be found quite dead, and not at all wetted. If the 
sticks do not exactly fit, they may be wedged in with a 
piece of cork. Professor Peck, who used to put minute 
insects into the hollow of a quill stopped with a piece of 
wood made to fit, killed them instantaneously by holding- 
it over the flame of a candle. 
Having killed your insects, your next object should 
be to prepare them for your cabinet. First, place by 
you a pincushion well stored with lace-pins of various 
magnitudes and lengths : for most insects those nearly 
an inch in length, for large ones, those that are thicker 
1 Plate XXIV. Fig. 7. e. b Ibid, a, b. 
c Ibid. b. a Ibid. a. 
