40 NATURE .STUDY. 



Of course all the two winged insects should be put in a 

 pile by themselves, and afterwards pinned with insect pins 

 and put in a box labeled Diptera — just as the beetles are 

 put in a box and marked Coleoptera, the bugs in another 

 marked Hemiptera, and the butterflies, skippers and 

 moths in one labeled Lepidoptera. 



Almost any kind of a box will do for a first collection, if 

 slices from cork stoppers are gummed at the bottom in 

 neat rows, to stick the pins in. Cigar boxes, with rows of 

 sliced cork, are the best of any, unless one cares to buy 

 the regular insect boxes that entomologists use. I have 

 often thought that children, rich or poor, find as much 

 fun and as much profit in cigar boxes, or plain pasteboard 

 boxes, filled with straight rows of neatly pinned insects, 

 as in the most costly cabinets that money can buy. 



When the two-winged insects, or Diptera, have been 

 put in their proper pile, and afterwards pinned, any bright 

 child will see at once that they can easily be sorted into 

 smaller groups. The house-flies and meat-flies can be sep- 

 arated from the horse-flies, the bee-flies and crane-flies can 

 be pinned in rows by themselves, the robber-flies and their 

 cousins will fill another row, and so on and on. 



This separating a collection of all sorts of insects into 

 piles, or orders, and then dividiing an order into smaller 

 groups, or families, is called classification, and I have nev- 

 er known a normal child that did not find keen pleasure 

 in it, when once given a hint as to what might be done. 

 Indeed, I have known some children, in my boyhood days, 

 when there was no such thing thought of as nature study, 

 to make a rude beginning on their own account, without 

 any help at all. 



