252 ENTOMOLOGY. 



account of the want of moisture;, " the insect being unable 

 to expand its wings in a heated, dry room. He has avoided 

 this difficulty by placing the insect just emerged, or about 

 to come forth, beneath a bell-glass, within which he had 

 placed moistened pieces of bibulous paper." 



By taking advantage of the habit of many tree-feeding 

 caterpillars of changing to pupae (pupating) in the soil close 

 to the trunk of the tree, many rare moths can with little 

 trouble be raised from the chrysalides thus found. As the 

 Kev. Joseph Greene ("The Insect-hunter's Companion," 

 London, 18T0) advises, the dirt around the trunk should 

 be dug up with a trowel, and carefully examined for chry- 

 salides. He adds that "pupae may be found almost any- 

 where and everywhere, under moss on large stones and 

 boulders, in the decayed stumps of old trees, behind the 

 loose bark on palings, between dead leaves, under moss on 

 banks, etc., etc." 



Hibernating Larvae. — These are very apt to die when 

 artificially hibernated. If kept too dry they die from lack 

 of moisture; if kept too moist they are apt to be attacked 

 by fungi. The effort should be to keep them at a tempera- 

 ture as steady as possible and below the freezing point. If 

 placed in a cellar with the window open, or among leaves 

 out of doors in a box protected from rain and snow, in con- 

 ditions as nearly as possible to nature, they may be in many 

 cases successfully carried over through the winter. 



Management of Pupae. — Mr. S. Lowell Elliott, who has 

 been remarkably successful in rearing butterflies and moths, 

 breeding them by the hundreds and even thousands, has a 

 pupa-box of the following description: It is about 20x16 

 inches, and 8 inches deep, with a bottom of coarse wire 

 cloth placed about 2 inches from the bottom, so that the 

 box can be set over a flat earthen pan of water; it is divided 

 by thin wooden partitions into four compartments, the 

 bottom of each of which is covered with a thick layer of 

 baked Sphagnum moss which has been pulled into fine bits. 

 The pupae are laid on this floor of moss, and covered over 



