168 APE0EI8MATA ENTOMOLOGIGA. 



to the vapour. In a short time, all consciousness having been destroyed, it 

 seemed the safer plan to make sure of the extinction of life. 



You will perceive that by this system the insect was never touclied by the 

 fingers, and its perfection was unimpaired." 



"IN EXTENSO. 



If one ever thinks at all about the various facts with which we are 

 necessarily conversant in every-day life, it can hardly fail to occur to the 

 mind, that not only the origin of many of the most useful of the "appliances 

 and moans" with which we are even the most familiar, is lost in the mists of 

 antiquity, but that the very names of the discoverers and inventors of the 

 most useful and beneficial sciences and arts are for ever buried in oblivion, if 

 indeed it was at any time their lot to rise from the obscurity which too often 

 shrouds the most meritorious and deserving benefactors of the human race. 



Who then was the inventor of the mode of setting insects that I am 

 about to mention and explain, I am utterly unable to say, and perhaps no 

 one may now know. Possibly the "ephemeral" nature of the subject may 

 have been thought to have imparted :i derived unworthiuess of fame to the 

 individual; but the society of entomologists should not be, and it is to be 

 hoped will not bo, blind to his merits, and, at all events, so far as the pages 

 of the "Aphorisraata Eutomologica" can throw lustre on whomever or whatever 

 they treat of, the invention shall be duly chronicled, even though the inventor's 

 own name cannot be handed down with it to future admiring generations, but 

 he must remain, perhaps for ever, "the Great Unknown." 



On second thoughts, I think I will adopt the plan of beginning with the 

 more simple mode, from which we shall advance, by one intermediate stage, to 

 the more ' rechere ' one. The analytical and the synthetical method has each 

 its separate advantages. 



Now the old procedure was to extend t.lie butterfly or moth with one card 

 brace impressed over each wing. Of course there are very many difierent 

 degrees of excellence in the exercise of the art of doing this, the great thing 

 being to have the wings exactly corresponding in extension on each side, and 

 also, if I may so express myself, flat, in a sloping direction, namely, sloping 

 down from the body of the insect to the surface on which it might be placed. 

 This is accomplished by slanting the brace when struck into the cork. In very 

 many instances it answers well, and the 'tout ensemble' is good; but on the 

 other hand, in no means a few cases, and this is not to be guarded against, 

 the wings become hollowed down in the middle, causing at the same time a 

 turning up of their edges, the efi'eet of which, to the entomological eye, is 

 exceedingly bad. For a sample of this mode of extension see the plate. To 

 remedy the defect caused by the practice of this mode, it occurred to some 

 ingenious person^ — the date of the discovery I do not know — to support the 

 wing from underneath by means of a supplemental card brace, before pressing 



