54-0 ENTOMOLOGICAL INSTRUMENTS, &C. 



has often struck me that the cavity of a modern hat, if 

 lined with cork, might be made a very useful receptacle 

 for these animals in a long excursion. Indeed, an active 

 Entomologist is never at a loss for an apparatus, but 

 often makes his most valuable captures when unprovided 

 with other instruments than his hands and eyes. A 

 careful survey of the trunk and branches of trees and 

 shrubs, particularly of the underside of their leaves, 

 seldom fails to detect many a lurking moth or beetle, 

 which may be transfixed or otherwise captured with 

 little trouble by an expert hand. In this way an inge- 

 nious collector, who scarcely knew what a net of any 

 kind was, told me he had made his whole collection, 

 which was rather extensive. It is, in fact, only by thus 

 detecting them when reposing, and adroitly shutting them 

 up along with the leaf on which they sit, in a box, that 

 minute moths (whose beauty and freshness the slightest 

 handling destroys) can ordinarily be taken without being 

 injured. The boxes containing them should afterwards 

 be exposed to the action of heat, a low degree of which 

 will destroy them. 



Enough has been said upon the best modes of catching 

 insects : I shall next attempt to give you some further 

 instructions as to the most effectual one of destroying 

 them when caught, and to point out how you are to pro- 

 ceed with them after they are dead. As I sufficiently 

 rebutted the charge of cruelty in a former letter % it will 

 not be necessary to enter here into that subject. 



I have before recommended to you the use of spirits 



a LETTER II. 



