176 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



it is somewhat larger : through this fine passage the chloro- 

 form comes out in a fine thread-lilce stream or jet (when the 

 bottle is inverted or shaken), which can be directed to the 

 head of an insect, through the smallest aperture, if necessary. 

 It is a most convenient pocket companion, and a great safe- 

 guard against waste in the use of chloroform, in-doors or out. 

 1 imagine that any neat brass-worker could make one to 

 order. Having never met with anything like it amongst other 

 lepidopterists, and knowing it to be a private invention, I 

 thought it worth while to send you this description, since 

 even those who use chloroform only to stupify may be glad 

 to hear of it. — [Rev.] Percy Andrews ; Lilleshall, Newport, 

 Salop, February 4, 1865. 



108. Killing Insects for the Cabinet. — Years ago I advo- 

 cated cyanide of potassium for killing all insects, or rather 

 (if good and easy setting be an object) for stupifying them as 

 immediately as "by chloroform, after which they may be killed 

 with oxalic acid if lepidopierous, &c., or by boiling if cole- 

 opterous. A small fragment wrapped in blotting-paper, and 

 placed under a perforated-card false-bottom in a wide- 

 mouthed bottle, soon renders the enclosed air more deadly 

 than chloroform; whilst no expense or difficully attends the 

 use of this substance, which, for photographical purposes, 

 may now be met with everywhere ; also, when combined 

 with old laurel-leaves, no stiffening will be found to ensue, 

 even when insects are suffered to die, and remain all night 

 in the bottle. My own plan with Lepidoptera is to pill-box 

 them, and then, as shortly after as possible, to open the pill- 

 box over the wide-mouthed bottle containing the cyanide, 

 into which the moths almost immediately fall, when they may 

 be taken out, stabbed with oxalic acid, and set or left as pre- 

 ferred. By this means females may be also left to deposit 

 their eggs or not, without difl5culty. — W. D. Crotch ; Uphill 

 House, IVeston-super-Mare. 



109. Hepialus Hinmili, var. thulensis. — Four years ago I 

 took a long series of the so-called Hepialus Humuli in Unst, 

 in Shetland, which I still have. I tried at the time to create 

 some little interest in these insects, from their marked pecu- 

 liarities, and notice now, for the first time, that attention has 

 been drawn to the matter. Such geographical varieties are 

 of great interest, only I should be very sorry to see new 



