BENEFICIAL INSECTS. 



53 



In collecting butterflies and moths for cabinet specimens, one 

 needs a gauze net a foot and a half deep, with the wire frame a 

 foot in diameter ; a wide-mouthed bottle containing a parcel of 

 cyanide of potassium gummed on the side, in which to kill the 

 moths, which should, as soon as life is extinct, be pinned in a 

 cork-lined collecting box carried in the coat pocket. The 

 captures should then be spread and dried on a grooved setting 

 board, and a cabinet formed of cork-lined boxes or drawers ; as 

 a substitute for cork, frames with paper tightly stretched over 

 them may be used, or the pith of corn-stalks or palm wood. 

 Caterpillars should be preserved in spirits, or in glycerine with 

 a little alcohol a,dded. 

 Some persons ingeniously 

 empty the skins and inflate 

 them over a flame so that 

 they may be pinned by the 

 side of the adult. 



Some of the most troub- 

 lesome and noxious in- 

 sects are found among the 

 moths. I need only men- 

 tion the canker worm and 

 American teut caterpillar, 

 and the various kinds of 

 cut worms, as instances. 



We must not, however, 

 forget the good done by 

 insects* They undoubt- 43. Parasite of the American Silk Worm, 

 edly tend by their attacks to prevent an undue growth of vege- 

 tation. The pruning done to a tre* or herb by certain insects 

 undoubtedly causes a more healthy growth of the branches and 

 leaves, and ultimately a greater production of fruit. Again, as 

 pollen-bearers, insects are a most powerful agency in nature. It 

 is undoubtedly the fact that the presence of bees in orchards 

 increases the fruit crop, and thus the thousands of moths 

 (though injurious as caterpillars), wild bees and other insects, 

 that .seem to live without purpose, are really, though few realize 

 it, among the best friends and allies o*f man. 



Moreover, insects are of great use as scavenger*; such are 

 the young or maggots of the house fly, the mosquitoes, and 

 numerous other forms, that seem created only to vex us when 



