ENTOMOLOGICAL INSTRUMENTS, &C. 553 
There are several kinds of boxes recommended to re- 
ceive them and breed them in. If your only object is to 
get the perfect insect, a cubical box of moderate dimen- 
sions, glazed in front or on one side to enable you to 
watch their proceedings, with the other sides and top 
fitted with fine canvass for the admission of air, will very 
well answer this purpose ; or your box may be canvassed 
all round, with a door in front a . In this you may place 
a small garden-pot filled with earth, with a phial of 
water plunged in it to receive the insects' food. This 
may be moved, when you wish to change the water, 
without disturbing the earth, which shouldbe kept some- 
what moist. The earth is for those caterpillars whose 
pupa? are subterranean. But as you will probably wish 
to proceed scientifically, and ascertain precisely the moth 
that comes from each caterpillar, I should strongly re- 
commend to you a box invented by Mr. Stephens, which 
he describes in a letter to me in nearly these words : — 
" The length of the box is 20 inches, height 12, and 
breadth 6; and it is divided intone compartments. Its 
lower half is constructed intirely of wood, and the upper 
of coarse gauze stretched upon wooden or wire frames : 
each compartment has a separate door, and is moreover 
furnished with a phial in the centre for the purpose of 
containing water, in which the food is kept fresh ; and is 
half-filled with a mixture of fine earth and the dust from 
the inside of rotten trees ; the latter article beino; added 
for the purpose of rendering the former less binding upon 
the pupas, as well as being highly important for the use 
of such larvae as construct their cocoons of rotten wood. 
The chief advantages of a breeding cage of the above 
* PtATE XXIV. Fig. 6. 
