338 Fiftieth Report on the State Museum 



his penmanship and perhaps end their Hfe in a bath of ink, as they are 

 doing at this present while writing of their obtrusiveness. 



The invahd, who may be held a captive within his home through 

 physical weakness'or other infirmity, during the months when the insect 

 world holds its hey-day in the fields and forest, may still make ample 

 collections for study and enricliment of his cabinet even within the con- 

 fines of his chamber. Should the year be favorable for insect life 

 (the years vary greatly in this respect), at least five hundred species 

 could be taken by him. Does this surprise you, as an indoor collection 

 for a single year ? I believe it a moderate estimate. To many of you, 

 perhaps, all the flies of our window seem alike, or the smaller forms are 

 regarded as the young of the common house-fly. Yet I would engage 

 that from the windows of a single room of one's house, during the 

 months of March to November inclusive, there could be taken one hun- 

 dred species of Diptera alone. 



Insect collections are easily made, and with simple and inexpensive 

 material. For our ordinary walks in the requirements of business or 

 study, the "cyanide bottle," that comparatively recent invention, yet 

 now regarded as indispensable to the collector's all that is needed for 

 securing most of our insects. To the cyanide bottle, of a size convenient 

 to be carried in a pocket, should be added a small tin box for inclosing 

 caterpillars or other larvee, with some of their food if desired to rear them. 

 For field excursions, we would multiply our bottles and boxes, and add 

 a suitable net, a pin-cushion with insect pins of two sizes, and a box 

 hanging from a button or belt in which to pin the collections. 



III. The Interest Attaching to the Study. 



I dare not urge this topic as I feel to do, for fear that you would re- 

 ceive what I might say as the extravagance of enthusiasm. If not pre- 

 pared to accept the assertion, that in no department of natural history 

 can you find so much to interest you, and to interest you so deeply, as 

 in the study of insects, their transformations and their habits, then, if 

 willing to test the truth of the assertion, will you please accept for guid- 

 ance the following program : 



Get the cocoons of some one of our larger silk-spinning moths, of the 

 family oi Bombycida;, — let them be, if you please, of Attacus Ft'omethea, 

 which you may find at the present time upon your lilac bushes, infolded 

 in dried-up leaves of last year's growth. Before you cut the cocoons 

 from the twigs (you can hardly tear them off" by hand) first observe the 

 silk extending from the cocoon, enveloping the leaf-stalk and then encir- 



