THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 181 



from India with perfect success. For one large specimen I 

 had to take the largest saucepan our small kitchen afforded, 

 and by placing a piece of wood and cork across the middle, 

 and filling the bottom with water, gave him a gentle vapour- 

 bath, which relaxed him in five or six hours; and the speci- 

 men was perfectly dry on the setting-board in three days. 

 Any plan which for five or six hours keeps the specimens in 

 a gentle warm vapour will relax more speedily and dry more 

 quickly than any other plan 1 have tried, and 1 do not find it 

 affect either colour or plumage. For killing moths of all kinds 

 1 invariably use cyanide (poison) bottles of different sizes, filled 

 very lightly with cotton-wool, which is placed in the bottles in 

 small pieces, so that the contents may be carefully drawn out 

 piece by piece. The moths bury themselves in the cotton- 

 wool, and may be carried without shaking. Some, I know, 

 have found this plan fail, and that small moths are rubbed. 

 Much of this damage is caused in taking the cotton-wool 

 out, if not placed in the bottles in small detached pieces. 

 With all care some may possibly be damaged slightly. By 

 what other plan can we ensure invariable success? Then I 

 shall be answered : The process stiffens the specimens, and 

 you cannot afterwards set them. I grant that it does, for 

 twelve, and even twenty-four hours afterwards; but leave 

 them in the bottle twenty-four hours and every specimen 

 will be perfectly pliant, for the rigor morlis has ceased. 1 

 found this out by leaving some specimens by accident in a 

 bottle for more than a week, and they set beautifully. When 

 out for several days I pack all my small moths in layers 

 between cotton-wool in one ol my poison bottles (I drop one 

 or two drops of water on the bottom and damp the cork), and 

 can set them all with perfect ease at the end of a week: in 

 factj you might leave them three weeks without damage; and 

 I find them travel admirably in this manner. I now never 

 touch a moth with my fingers, except to insert the pin for 

 setting; and the amount of niidnight labour spared after a 

 hard day's hunting on the mountains is a relief not to be 

 despised. Can any of your correspondents give a hint as to 

 the best means of handling the antennte in setting ? 1 mean 

 the antennae of Noctuae, Geometrae, &c. ; 1 cannot keep them 

 straight on the setting-boards, do what I will. I have tried 

 pins; small pieces of paper over them ; but no plan satisfies 



