16 COLLECTING AND PRESERVING INSECTS. 



stamp the box lightly. In sending boxes by express they 

 should be carefully packed in a larger box, having an inter- 

 space of two inches, which can be filled in tightly with hay or 

 crumpled bits of paper. Beetles can be wrapped in pieces of 

 soft paper. Labels for alcoholic specimens should consist 

 of parchment with the locality, date of capture, and name of 

 collector written in ink. A temporary label of firm paper with 

 the locality, etc., written with a pencil, will last for several 

 years. 



Preservation of Larvae. Alcoholic specimens of insects, in 

 all stages of growth, are very useful. Few collections contain 

 alcoholic specimens of the adult insect. This is a mistake. 

 Many of the most important characters are effaced during the 

 drying process, and for purposes of general study alcoholic 

 specimens, even of bees, Lepidoptera, Diptera, and dragon- 

 flies are very necessary. 



Larvce, generally, may be well preserved in vials or bottles 

 of alcohol. They should first be put into whiskey, and then 

 into alcohol. If placed in the latter first, they shrivel and 

 become distorted. Mr. E. Burgess preserves caterpillars with 

 the colors unchanged, by immersing them in boiling water 

 thirty or forty seconds, and then placing them in equal parts 

 of alcohol and water. It is well to collect larvae and pupae 

 indiscriminately ; even if we do not know their adult forms 

 we can approximate to them, and in some cases tell very ex- 

 actly what they must be. 



Rearing Larvae. More attention has been paid to rearing 

 caterpillars than the young of any other suborder of insects, 

 and the following remarks apply more particularly to them, 

 but very much the same method may be pursued in rearing 

 the larvae of beetles, flies, and Hymenoptera. Subterranean 

 larvae have to be kept in moist earth, aquatic larvae must be 

 reared in aquaria, and carnivorous larvae must be supplied 

 with flesh. The larvae of butterflies are rare ; those of moths 

 occur more frequently, while their imagos may be scarce. In 

 some years many larvae, which are usually rare, occur in abun- 

 dance, and should then be reared in numbers. In hunting for 

 caterpillars bushes should be shaken and beaten over news- 

 papers or sheets, or an umbrella ; herbage should be swept, 

 and trees examined carefully for leaf-rollers and miner?). The 



