and battered examples. The old adage, "Practice makes perfect," applies in the 

 use of the net and the poisoning jar. There will necessarily be some failures on 

 the part of the young collector at the outset, but if he is neat and quick of finger 

 he will soon acquire the art of taking and preserving perfect specimens. 



The field box should be made of tin and should have a sheet of cork securely 

 fastened at the bottom. In one corner of the box, tied in gauze and securely 

 fixed in place, there should be a few lumps of cyanide. Into this box the speci- 

 mens should be pinned as they are taken from the collecting jar, and the lid 

 of this box should be kept tightly closed most of the time, being opened only 

 when the transfer of the pinned specimens to the interior of the box is ready to be 

 made. Inasmuch as pinning insects on the field is not always satisfactorily accom- 

 plished, the writer prefers not to pin them, but to carry with him a supply of small 

 pay-roll envelopes, into which the insects are put, and these envelopes are then put 

 into a box which has some cyanide secured in it, as has already been described. 

 The writer also carries with him a little phial of chloroform in his vest pocket, and 

 lie sometimes uses this to stun insects or puts a few drops into the collecting box 

 and then closes it. The objection to the use of chloroform is that it induces spasms 

 of the thoracic muscles, and butterflies killed by the use of chloroform are not 

 nearly so easily mounted as specimens which have been killed with cyanide. Bee- 

 tles, wasps, and other hard-bodied insects should not be put into the same col- 



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