VARIOUS MODES OF COLLECTING 55 



moths from the egg, and species for which we might 

 have waited long enough before finding the larvae, have 

 thus been observed through all their stages. 



In rearing larvae, it is essential that they should be 

 kept supplied with fresh food ; plants keep fresh by 

 being placed in water (in which case the larvae only too 

 frequently crawl down the stem into the water and so 

 drown themselves), or by being shut up in tight -fitting- 

 tins or glass vessels ; in the latter case a few larvae 

 might live together comfortably, but if too many be 

 placed together in a tight-fitting vessel suffocation may 

 ensue. 



It has been well remarked by Dr. Knaggs when 

 treating of " the caterpillar state " in his ' Notes on 

 Collecting' (' Entomologist's Monthly Magazine,' vol. ii., 

 p. 38), that " many an entomologist, who has of late 

 years devoted both time and energy to ' breeding,' as it 

 is termed, will bear me out in the statement that it is, 

 perhaps, the most deeply interesting of all the charm- 

 ing occupations to which the student of entomology is 

 liable ; for whether we regard it in an instructive point 

 of view, or pursue it from the simple love of contem- 

 plating creation's wonders, or whether we have an eye 

 merely to quantity and quality of ' specimens,' it is, in 

 either case, an equally profitable employment." 



