558 ENTOMOLOGICAL INSTRUMENTS, &C. 



direction to those on the other. Where your pins are very 

 fine and weak, you must make a hole first with a com- 

 mon lace-pin ; otherwise, in forcing them into the cork, - 

 they will bend. In labelling your specimens, you should 

 stick the appellation of the genus or subgenus with a 

 pin before the species that belong to it. As to the species 

 themselves, you may either number them 1, 2, 3, &c., 

 sticking the pin they are upon through the number, and 

 denoting them by a corresponding one in your catalogue; 

 or you may at once write the trivial name, with the ini- 

 tial of the genus upon a label transfixed in the same 

 manner. Lepidoptera cannot easily be arranged in co- 

 lumns. Perhaps if squares, corresponding with the size 

 and number of the specimens of any given species you 

 wish to preserve, were made with pencil, a label of the 

 trivial name of the species, or a number being placed at 

 its head, it would be as good a way as any other. But 

 every one must be left to his own taste in these matters. 

 Wherever you can, procure a specimen of each sex of 

 an insect, and where important characters require it, let 

 some of your Lepidopterous specimens exhibit the under 

 side of the wings. 



In arranging insects in your cabinet, if you wish to 

 have it scientific, as much as the nature of the subject 

 will admit, follow the series of affinities , but you may re- 

 serve a few drawers to place in contrast analogous forms. 

 As your numbers of species increase you will have to alter 

 your arrangement ; but as pencil lines are easily rubbed 

 out, this will occasion you less trouble than if they were 

 drawn with ink. You should always be careful under 

 each genus to leave space for new species. 



As certain Acarina, Tineida, Ptinidee, &c., prey upon 



