ENTOMOLOGICAL INSTRUMENTS, &C. 54-5 



manufactured on purpose, this difficulty might per- 

 haps be surmounted ; but the needles will be subject to 

 rust, and the pins, I know by experience, cannot be 

 fixed in cork without difficulty. For such minute insects, 

 therefore, by far the best mode is to gum them on small 

 pieces of card, which may be stuck upon a pin. Talc, 

 which admits the underside of an insect to be seen 

 through it, has been used for this purpose ; and where 

 you have only a single specimen, a thin small lamina of 

 it would answer well ; but ordinarily 1 should recom- 

 mend the former mode. Your pieces of card, which 

 must be small, may be either oblong and cut at the 

 corners for neatness, with a couple of specimens gummed 

 upon each, one on its belly and the other on its back ; 

 or you may cut little narrow card wedges, about four 

 lines long and terminating in a point, upon which you 

 may so gum your insects as to show the principal part 

 of the under side, as well as the upper side of its body. 

 Common gum- water made rather thin, with a very 

 little glue mixed with it, will answer your purpose very 

 well: it should be thinly spread on the card with a 

 camel's-hair pencil, and then the insect placed upon it. 

 With the same implement, if it has not been killed too 

 long, before the gum is dry you may expand its antennae, 

 palpi, legs, and wings, &c. If you want to remove a 

 specimen gummed on a card for any purpose, it is easily 

 effected by plunging it into hot water. 



Other insects may be transfixed through the thorax 

 or upper side of the trunk ; as also those Coleoptera, Or- 

 thoptera, and Hemiptera, whose wings you are desirous 

 of expanding ; only you should be careful that your pin 

 passes through them behind the prothorax. 



VOL. iv. 2 N 



