TENACITY OF LIFE. 191 



effect, I shut him up in chloroform vapour, but 

 after some hours he was still alive. When I 

 reached home 1 put him in a biscuit tin with a 

 lump of cyanide of potassium, and left him for 

 two days, making sure that would finish him, 

 but when I looked he was as lively as ever. I 

 was in despair, and after giving him some more 

 chloroform, stabbed him several times under the 

 wings with a pen dipped in oxalic acid, which at 

 last had the desired effect. 



One of the small ones too grieved me by his 

 obstinacy in living ; he had been hours in the 

 poison-bottle, and seemed as dead as he could be. 

 I inserted the usual bit of grass the whole length 

 of his body to prevent its breaking when dry, 

 as I have to do to all these creatures and the 

 dragon-flies, carefully pinned him up, and laid out 

 his legs. Next morning he was wildly flourish- 

 ing them about. He could not have had any 

 inside, because the grass I inserted was a very 

 tight fit, 



The female of one species of large grasshopper 

 (Saga maculosa} is also very tenacious of life ; 



