ENTOMOLOGICAL INSTRUMENTS, &C. 549 



other purpose. Beetles may be relaxed by plunging 

 them for a short time in warm water or spirits of wine 3 . 

 Many moths of the tribe, of Tinea L. are so extremely 

 minute, that it is almost impossible to set them without 

 defacing their characters : indeed, the trunk of some is 

 so small as not to admit being pierced by a pin. These, 

 therefore, it is adviseable merely to gum upon card, ex- 

 panding their wings (which the gum will easily retain in 

 their proper situation) with a camel' s-hair pencil. If 

 you have two specimens, you may fix one in the natural 

 position when at rest, a method I should recommend 

 with respect to other Lepidoptera^ and indeed insects in 

 general. Pezold advises that, by way of contrast, 'white 

 card should be used for dark-coloured species of these 

 little moths, and black for such as are pale. As the 

 wings of different Coleopterous groups, as well as those of 

 Hymenoptera, Diptera, &c., vary in their neuration b , 

 you should, whenever you can, set open the elytra and 

 expand the wings of one specimen at least in each group, 

 which will be very important to you in making out the 

 characters of your genera. 



When sufficiently dried, your insects should be trans- 

 ferred from the setting-boards, either to their place in 

 your cabinet or to the store-box before described, till 

 you have leisure to investigate them. 



However tedious some of the foregoing manipulations 

 may seem, they are in fact much less so than those re- 

 quired in several other branches of Natural History, 

 where, in addition to the labour of catching, the nice and 



* Mr. Siimouelle (Useful Compendium, 321) recommends a some, 

 what different method. 



* VOL. III. p. 623. 



