ENTOMOLOGICAL INSTRUMENTS, &C. 5.4>$ 
manufactured on purpose, this difficulty might per- 
haps be surmounted ; but the needles will be subject to 
rust, and the pins, I know by experience, cannot be 
fixed in cork without difficulty. For such minute insects, 
therefore, by far the best mode is to gum them on small 
pieces of card, which may be stuck upon a pin. Talc, 
which admits the underside of an insect to be seen 
through it, has been used for this purpose ; and where 
you have only a single specimen, a thin small lamina of 
it would answer well ; but ordinarily I should recom- 
mend the former mode. Your pieces of card, which 
must be small, may be either oblong and cut at the 
corners for neatness, with a couple of specimens gummed 
upon each, one on its belly and the other on its back ; 
or you may cut little narrow card wedges, about four 
lines long and terminating in a point, upon which you 
may so gum your insects as to show the principal part 
of the under side, as well as the upper side of its body. 
Common gum-water made rather thin, with a very 
little glue mixed with it, will answer your purpose very 
well : it should be thinly spread on the card with a 
camel's-hair pencil, and then the insect placed upon it. 
With the same implement, if it has not been killed too 
long, before the gum is dry you may expand its antennae, 
palpi, legs, and wings, &c. If you want to remove a 
specimen gummed on a card for any purpose, it is easily 
effected by plunging it into hot water. 
Other insects may be transfixed through the thorax 
or upper side of the trunk ; as also those Coleoptera, Or- 
thoptera, and Hemiptera, whose wings you are desirous 
of expanding ; only you should be careful that your pin 
passes through them behind the prothorax. 
VOL. IV. '2 N 
