THE ENTOMOLOGIST. •229 



cale but tough, and always attached to some solid body : the 

 caterpillar, enclosed in this cocoon, does not undergo trans- 

 formation to a chrysalis at once, but remains motionless for 

 many months, and it is only five or six weeks before the ap- 

 pearance of the imago that it becomes a chrysalis, which at 

 first is of a dull yellow-green colour, the case which encloses 

 the abdomen being brown, its extremity furnished with seven 

 or eight fine hairs, each of which is bent in the form of a 

 fish-hook. The emergence of the first brood does not take 

 place until the next year, after the chrysalis state has lasted 

 for nearly eight months. 



Our friends in Cheshire would do good service to the 

 cause of Entomology by ascertaining the food-plant of this 

 species at New Brighton, and observing whether there are 

 one or two broods during the summer : it occurs very abun- 

 dantly both there and in Galway, and its habits on the 

 Cheshire coast may be ascertained with scarcely any trouble. 

 The details I have given are from Milliere's ' Jconographie.' 

 — Edward Newman. 



Entomological Notes, Captures, 8^c. 



New Method of preserving Coleoptera. — The following 

 method has now been in use some time, and hence has been 

 fairly tested. Its advantages are very great, so that I make 

 no apology for introducing it to the notice of your readers. 

 The first idea of the process is due, as far as I know, to 

 M. de Vuillefroi, who used it with me in Spain, some years 

 ago, with great success. The specimens may be collected in 

 two ways, according to size and the convenience of the col- 

 lector. The first and best way, for small species, is by put- 

 ting them into a bottle containing about half an inch of dry 

 pine-sawdust, in which has been previously placed a small 

 piece of cyanide of potassium about as big as a pea : they 

 will then die instantly. Larger species, and small species 

 which do not fly readily, may be put into spirits in the ordi- 

 nary way, but the Staphylinidae and others generally open 

 their wings in this process. The sawdust should be pine- 

 wood, and sifted free from chips on the one hand and dust 



