DIRECTIONS FOR COLLECTING, ETC. 133 
corresponding with a nwmber attached to the drawing; and by this system, not only every buttertly will be assigned 
to its proper caterpillar (which has not always been the case), but even the male and female caterpillars may 
perhaps be distinguished by unvarying markings, as distinct, no doubt, in many instances, as those of the perfect 
insects themselves ; a fact which it would be highly interesting to prove satisfactorily. 
The caterpillars, when taken, should be touched with care, as they will not bear rough handling. A large box 
should be prepared for them with a gauze lid, and should contain several divisions, each distinguished by a 
number ; each division should also have a little earth mixed with rotten wood at the bottom, which may be 
prevented from getting too dry and dusty by keeping a layer of damp moss upon it. In the corner of each 
division should be placed also a phial of water, in which a branch of the plant which the insect feeds upon will 
be kept fresh ; it should, however, be renewed every day, or even twice a day, if possible, care being taken not 
to disturb the caterpillars at the time they are casting their skin, which occurs several times before they 
attain their full growth, varying in different species. It will be understood that the earth at the bottom of the 
divisions is for the use of such caterpillars as undergo their change in the ground. 
To rear caterpillars from the egg is much more difficult; but the most certain method is to place the eggs 
securely upon a branch of the proper food of the species, in the open air, and, to prevent escape, inclosing the 
branch in a gauze or muslin bag or frame. It will be found necessary, however, to remove them to other 
branches as often as the leaves are destroyed, or become unfit food. Caterpillars, when taken nearly full-grown, 
may also be treated in this way with great success, but great care must be taken in removing the chrysalides to 
a box covered with gauze as soon as they are formed, and they must in all cases be examined frequently, as, if the 
perfect insect remains long in the box without being secured, the wings will become injured by its endeavours to 
escape, and one great advantage of rearing them from the caterpillar state is, that more perfect specimens arc 
secured than could possibly be obtained by capturing them in the winged state, as even the exercise of flying 
destroys the downy bloom which they exhibit on first emerging from the chrysalis. 
To capture the winged insect flying, or settled upon a flower, or on the ground, gauze nets are used of two or 
three sorts, which will be found described in Mr. Ingpen’s little work, or Mr. Westwood’s Entomologist’s Text- 
Book: for instance, to capture the high-flying purple emperor a net is sometimes used fixed to a rod or pole 
twenty feet long; but Mr. Ingpen mentions that he is sometimes, in common with other strong flyers, brought 
to the ground by throwing up a piece of stone or tile, in his course, which he follows in its fall, and sometimes 
alights upou it, when he is easily taken. 
When captured and killed, care being taken not to rub off the down from the wings, a pin must be passed 
through the thorax, and the wings kept expanded by thin braces of cord until the insect is perfeetly dry. This 
requires several days, varying according to the weather, after which it is ready to be placed in the cabinet. 
When the season is past, both for taking the insects in the larva or imago state, the leisure hours of late 
autumn may still be occupied in search of chrysalides. These may be sought, as the garden flower-beds are 
dug over, upon the plants on which they have fed, and on walls and palings ; but in the latter situations it 
frequently happens that they are diseased individuals, which, pierced by the ichneumon fly, have wandered from 
their food, and in their malaise sought a shady and solitary retreat, instinctively, perhaps, endeavouring to escape 
their enemy, who generally pierces them in the bright sunshine. Chrysalides taken in such situations will 
frequently, when they burst, instead of the expected butterfly, discharge a hundred small silken cocoons, each 
T 
