OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 29 



and I hope to live to see the day when there will be a corps of well- 

 supported economic entomologists scattered through the country, 

 instead of the few who are now in the field under crippled conditions. 

 It is not well for our legislators to be penny wise and pound foolish 

 in matters of this kind; and the office should be so endowed as to 

 warrant at least the proper assistance. In my own capacity I have 

 often felt cramped and restricted in my efforts ; and experiments have 

 frequently been valueless where, if they could have been carried out 

 more thoroughly, they might have resulted in great good. An incom- 

 plete experiment is negative, and simply tantalizing, where a full and 

 thorough one would be positive and definite, and might prove of th© 

 utmost importance. 



HOW TO COLLECT, PRESERVE AND STUDY INSECTS. 



Few departments of natural history off"er greater inducements or 

 facilities to the student than Entomology. He need not pass hi& 

 threshold for material, for it may be found on every hand and at all 

 seasons. The directions for collecting, preserving and stu lying injects 

 might be extended indefinitely in detail, as volumes have already 

 been written on the subject; but the more general and important 

 instructions are soon given. 



Collecting. — Beginners are very apt to supply themselves with 

 all sorts of appliances advertised by natural history furnishing-stores. 

 Many of these appliances, when it comes to real, practical field-work,, 

 are soon abandoned as useless incumbrances; and the greater the 

 experience, the simpler will be the paraphernalia. My own equip- 

 ment, on a collecting trip, consists chiefly of a cotton umbrella, a 

 strong and narrow steel trowel or digger, a haversack slung across the 

 shoulders, a cigar-box lined with sheet cork, and a email knapsack 

 attached to a waist-belt which girts a coat, not of many colors, but of 

 many pockets so made that in stooping nothing falls out of them. The 

 umbrella is one of the indispensables. It shields, when necessary, 

 from old Sol's scorching rays and from the pelting, drenching storm; 

 brings within reach, by its hooked handle, many a larva-freighted 

 bough which would otherwise remain undisturbed ; and forms an ex- 

 cellent receptacle for all insects that may be dislo.-lged Irom bush or 

 branch. Opened and held inverted under a bough with the left hand, 

 while the right manipulates a beating-stick cut for the occasion, it 

 will be the recipient of many a choice specimen that would never 

 have been espied amid its protective surroundings. Some collectors 

 use an umbrella painted or lined on the inside with white, to facilitate 

 the detection of any object that drops into it; but as there are fully as 

 many, if not more, pale and white insects as there are dark or black 

 ones, the common dark umbrella is good enough for all ordinary pur- 

 poses ; and if any improvement on the ordinary cotton umbrella is- 



