xlvi European Butterflies and Moths. 



The journals should be provided with indexes, so that their contents can easily be referred to, 

 and should contain notices of insects seen or caught, with localities, the time and place where 

 pupae were met with, and the date of the appearance of the perfect insect. Every specimen in the 

 collection, or at least any of any rarity, should bear a number corresponding to one in a ledger, 

 showing where, when, and how it was obtained. Generally speaking, all species captured on the 

 same excursion, or at least all found under the same circumstances or derived from the same 

 source, may bear the same number. 



ON rREPARING LEFIDOPTERA FOR THE CABINET. 



Any perfect insects which we bring home alive, or those which are bred from the pupa, 

 should be killed and pinned as soon as possible, unless we wish to breed from them. It is 

 generally better to box all bred specimens before attempting to kill them. We have already 

 spoken of the various modes of killing Lepidoptera. It is necessary to be very careful to pin 

 all specimens exactly through the middle of the thorax, and some collectors use a lens when 

 pinning Micro- Lepidoptera, for if they happen not to be pinned quite straight, we shall find 

 it very difficult, and often impossible, to set them afterwards. Insects of large or moderate 

 size may be pinned in the hand, as already directed, but very small ones can be better pinned 

 if laid on white blotting-paper. When chloroform, sulphuric ether, ammonia, or any other 

 strong volatile substance has been dropped into a pill-box, it is always necessary afterwards to 

 leave the box open till the smell has entirely evaporated before using it for any other purpose. 

 When the sun is bright and hot, the readiest way of killing an insect is to put it in a box without 

 a lid, and press the box against the glass of a window on which the sun is shining, when the 

 insect will speedily die. 



Pinning; &c. — In removing insects, great care is necessary in drawing the pin from the cork, 

 especially when it is tightly fixed or very slender. It must then be drawn up with a slow, steady 

 motion, and quite straight, so as not to jerk when finally drawn from the surface. A sudden jerk, 

 caused either by the pliers slipping, or the elastic pin springing when drawn from its place, is often 

 enough to shake a delicate specimen to pieces. All the insects in the collection should be set at a 

 uniform height and in a uniform manner. English collectors usually set their insects with the 

 wings somewhat sloping, and rather low down on the pin, so as almost to rest on the paper of the 

 cabinet, which, however, the specimens should never be allowed to touch. The mode generally 

 practised on the Continent and in America is to use very long pins, and set the insects, with the 

 wings expanded flat, a good half inch or more from the surface of the drawer. This method has 

 many advantages ; but perhaps the chief disadvantage is that long pins require much deeper 

 drawers and boxes than are commonly used in England. Some collectors pin their Alicro- 

 Lepidoptera to one end of a narrow strip of cork or pith, through the other end of which a pin is 

 run to fix it in the drawer. The end of the pin should be touched with gum to fasten it in the 

 pith. The advantage of this plan is that it allows the specimens to be moved without either 

 difficulty or danger, to which the smaller Micros, which must necessarily be pinned with the finest 

 pins which can possibly be obtained, would otherwise be exposed whenever it was necessary to 

 touch them. We have already spoken of the necessity of all the specimens being set alike ; and 

 this is necessary, not only because the symmetry of a collection is destroyed, even if the specimens 

 are well set, if they are set at different heights on the pin, or if the wings of some are more 

 expanded than those of others, but because it is difficult to compare specimens satisfactorily 

 when the setting is not uniform. Lepidoptera require to be set, or to have their wings expanded to 



