266 PRESERVATION OF INSECTS. 



preventing this evil, I have used rather extensively 

 and believe it to be a very effectual, and generally an 

 innocuous preservative ; but as this gentleman has not 

 given us the exact proportions of his mixture, it may 

 not be useless to observe, that if one part of corrosive 

 sublimate be dissolved in eight parts of good spirit of 

 wine, and the under side of the insect touched with a 

 camel's-hair pencil, dipped in the liquor, so as to let it 

 lightly pervade every part of the creature, which it 

 readily does, it will, I apprehend, prevent any future 

 injury from insects. A larger portion of the sublimate 

 will leave an unsightly whiteness upon the creature 

 when the specimen becomes dry. The under side of 

 the board, on which the insects are fixed, should be 

 warmed a little by the fire after the application, that 

 the superfluous moisture may fly off, before finally 

 closing the case. If this be omitted, the inner surface 

 of the glass will sometimes become partially obscured 

 by the furne arising from the mixture. The experienced 

 entomologist needs not a notice like this ; but the 

 young collector probably will not regard it as unneces- 

 sary information, and may be spared by it from both 

 mortification and regret. I have known insects com- 

 mence their serious operations before the collections 

 of the summer could be arranged in their permanent 

 cases. 



In noticing above, that this solution is generally 

 harmless, it is requisite that mention should be made 

 of the few instances in which it has been observed to 

 be injurious. I have applied it to many specimens of 

 foreign and British insects, and commonly observed no 

 indication of its having been used, when the creatures 

 had become dry. But to confine our attentions to Eng- 

 lish specimens, when the solution is made stronger than 

 recommended, it will, after a time, injure the fine yellow 

 of the sulphur butterfly (papilio rhamni), by turning 

 parts of it brown and dirty ; but even in its reduced 

 state it has a manifest effect upon the colors of two of 

 our moths, the Dartford emerald (phalaena lucidata), and 

 what is commonly called the green housewife moth 

 (phalaena vernaria) changing .their plumage, in several 



