PRESERVATION OF INSECTS. 365 



sects with growing food, instead either of gathered 

 leaves or branches kept fresh in water ; and we have 

 in several instances, particularly in town, where we 

 could not always procure fresh food for our broods 

 when wanted, kept plants growing in garden-pots, 

 and either confined the insects by means of gauze, 

 or surrounded the pots with water, to prevent their 

 escape. We have since carried this somewhat far- 

 ther, having procured young plants of forest and 

 orchard-trees and shrubs, and planted them in 

 garden-pots, which are plunged, as the gardeners 

 term it, to defend them from drought, and are ready 

 for any experiment we choose to make. These, be- 

 sides, have the advantage of attracting into the 

 garden where the pots are plunged the insects pe- 

 culiar to the several trees ; and when we say that the 

 space occupied is only about thirty or forty feet in 

 length, by two in breadth, while none of the trees 

 are suffered to get above two or three feet high, we 

 apprehend that few persons, who have any garden at 

 all, will find such a plantation unsuitable to their 

 convenience, if they are disposed to such pursuits. 

 Herbaceous plants can, for the most part, be pro- 

 cured and planted at any season they may be re- 

 quired, and hence it is not so necessary to keep any 

 collection of them growing ; whereas the trans- 

 planting of trees in summer is most likely to kill 

 them*. 



This plan has, besides, the peculiar advantage of 

 putting it in our power, by means of sufficiently 

 ample gauze coverings, to make moths, butterflies, 

 and other insects deposit their eggs under our eye 

 on the plants or trees on which they would do so 

 when at liberty, an interesting part of insect history, 

 which, on account of the difficulties of research, is as 

 yet very imperfectly known. 

 * J.R. 



