ENTOMOLOGICA! INSTRUMENTS, &c. 543 



renders it desirable, in order to avoid the damage or de- 

 rangement occasioned by pressure, to transfix them with- 

 out it. To dispatch these effectually, you will find the 

 following apparatus very convenient. Fix in a small tin 

 saucepan a filled with boiling water, a tin tube consisting 

 of two pieces b that fit into each other ; cover the mouth 

 of the lower one c with a piece of gauze or canvass, and 

 place your insects upon it ; then fix the upper one d over 

 it, and cover also the mouth of this with gauze, &c. ; and 

 the steam from the boiling water will effectually kill your 

 insects without injuring their plumage. There is another 

 more simple mode of doing this, the apparatus for which 

 may be met with every where. Fix a piece or two of 

 elder, willow, or any soft wood, witli the bark on, across 

 the bottom of a mug, and on this stick your impaled in- 

 sects ; invert the mug in a deep basin, into which pour 

 boiling water till it is covered, holding it down with a 

 knife, &c., that the expansion of the included air may 

 not overturn it. In two minutes, or less, all the insects 

 will be found quite dead, and not at all wetted. If the 

 sticks do not exactly fit, they may be wedged in with a 

 piece of cork. Professor Peck, who used to put minute 

 insects into the hollow of a quill stopped with a piece of 

 wood made to fit, killed them instantaneously by holding 

 it over the flame of a candle. 



Having killed your insects, your next object should 

 be to prepare them for your cabinet. First, place by 

 you a pincushion well stored with lace-pins of various 

 magnitudes and lengths : for most insects those nearly 

 an inch in length, for large ones, those that are thicker 



3 PLATE XXIV. FIG. 7. c. b Ibid. , b. 



c Ibid. b. A Ibid. a. 



