The Capture, Preparation, and Preservation of Specimens 



Insect Pesfs.— In order to preserve collections, great care must 

 be taken to exclude the various forms of insect pests, which are 

 likely, unless destroyed and kept from attacking the specimens, 

 to ruin them utterly in comparatively a short time. The pests 

 which are most to be feared are beetles belonging to the gen- 

 era Dermestes and Anthreniis. In addition to these beetles, 

 which commit their ravages in the larval stage, moths and mites 

 prey upon collections. Moths are very infrequently, however, 

 found in collections of insects, and in a long experience the writer 

 has known only one or two instances in which any damage was 

 inflicted upon specimens by the larvse of moths. Mites are much 

 more to be dreaded. 



In order to prevent the ravages of insects, all specimens, before 

 putting them away into the boxes or drawers of the cabinet in 

 which they are to be preserved, should be placed in a tight box in 

 which chloroform, or, better, carbon bisulphide, in a small pan is 

 put, and they should be left here for at least twenty-four hours, 

 until it is certain that all life is extinct. Then they should be trans- 

 ferred to the tight boxes or drawers in which they are to be kept. 

 The presence of insect pests in a collection is generally first indi- 

 cated by fine dust under the specimen, this dust being the excre- 

 ment of the larva which is committing depredations upon the 

 specimen. In case the presence of the larva is detected, a liberal 

 dose of chloroform should at once be administered to the box or 

 tray in which the specimen is contained. The specimen itself 

 ought to be removed, and may be dipped into benzine. 

 Naphthaline crystals or camphor is generally employed 

 to keep out insect pests from boxes. They are very 

 useful to deter the entrance of pests, but when they 

 have once been introduced into a collection neither naph- 

 thaline nor camphor will kill them. Naphthaline is 

 prepared in the form of cones attached to a pin, and 

 these cones may be placed in one corner of the box. 

 They are made by Blake & Co. of Philadelphia, and are 

 in vogue among entomologists. However, a good 

 substitute for the cones may very easily be made by fig. 72.— 

 taking the ordinary moth-balls which are sold every- Naphthaline 

 where. By heating a pin red-hot in the flame of an 

 alcohol-lamp it may be thrust into the moth-ball; as it enters it 

 melts the naphthaline, which immediately afterward cools and 



53 



