PARASITES-COLLECTING 61 



departure from the vegetable diet of the order. Then 

 we thought how we had had the whole story in our 

 room, and might have discovered it all for ourselves if 

 we had only known enough. This is a butterfly story, 

 but we give it to show the importance of thorough, 

 careful observation, and of keeping records and speci- 

 mens of which one maj^ not know the worth at the time. 



Another lost chance was when one of our village 

 acquaintances found a male and female Triptogon 

 modesta on a fence, and chloroformed them at once. 

 The female revived after being set on the board, and, 

 in spite of a pin through her thorax, laid several 

 eggs. This also was in the very early days of our 

 study, when we were so much absorbed in getting the 

 names of all the moths we found that we did not think 

 of the value of these eggs until it was too late, and we 

 were sorry enough that we lost our chance of getting 

 the first description of the larvae, much less known 

 then than now, and by no means common now. We 

 might have had the whole history from the eggs 

 thrown away by the finder of the moths. These were 

 the very first moth eggs we ever saw, and would have 

 given us a "pre\'iously untold story" if we had but 

 known enough to save them. It was twenty years be- 

 fore we had another chance of rearing T. modesta 

 from the egg. 



In almost every country or seaside place the chil- 

 dren can be interested very easily in bringing moths, 

 cocoons, and caterpillars to any one whom they know 

 to want them. The village children are usually glad 

 of a chance to earn a few cents every day or two, and 

 the city children are eager to find all the wonders of 



