240 ENTOMOLOGY. 



punch, and should he kept in wooden pill-boxes ready Eor 

 use; at the same time a key to the colors, showing the 

 regions embraced by each, should be made on the fly-leaf 

 of the catalogue of the collection." He also strongly rec- 

 ommends that the "specimens should all be pinned at the 

 same height, since the ease of recognizing species allied in 

 characters is greatly increased by having them on the same 

 level." 



He also states that "it is better, even when numbers with 

 reference to a catalogue are employed, that the name of 

 each species should be written on a label attached to the 

 first specimen. Thus the eye is familiarized with the 

 association of the species and its name, memory is aided, 

 and greater power given of identifying species when the 

 cabinet is not at hand." For indicating the sexes the astro- 

 nomical sign $ (Mars) is used for the male, and ? (Venus) 

 for the female, and P for the worker. 



For exhibiting alcoholic specimens of insects in different 

 stages, and preventing their remaining at the bottom of 

 bottles on the shelves, Prof. Moebius places the specimens 

 in a glass tube filled with alcohol and having a stopper of 

 cotton-wool. He then puts the insects according to their 

 age, eggs or larvae lowest, in a stoppered upright bottle 

 filled with alcohol, in the middle <>f which is a cylindrical 

 glass which presses the glass tube against the side of the 

 upright vessel (Zool. Anzeiger, vi.. L883, 52—3). 



Transportation of Insects. — While travelling, all hard- 

 bodied insects, comprising many llymenoptera, the Coleop- 

 tera, Hemiptera, and many NTeuroptera, should be thrown, 

 with their larvae, etc., into bottles and vials filled with 

 strong alcohol, with rubber stoppers. When the bottle is 

 filled new liquor should be poured in, and the old may be 

 saved for collecting purposes; in this way the specimens 

 will not soften and can be preserved indefinitely, and the 

 colors do not, in most cases, change. LeConte states that 

 "if the bottles are in danger of being broken, the speci- 

 mens, after remaining for a day or two in alcohol, may be 



