106 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
altogether the inflated skin looks but a wretched caricature of 
its original self. By this operation, too, the skin becomes 
very brittle, and unless great care is taken the hair is very 
likely to be singed, or the skin scorched to a beautiful brown 
tint. These, however, are but minor objections, the chief 
one seeming to me to lie in the undue extension and rigidity 
of the body. Perhaps where I have failed in getting satisfac- 
tory results, more skilful operators might succeed; but even 
those museum specimens which I have seen preserved in this 
way seem open to the same faults. 
The method I have found to produce the best results I was 
induced to adopt from a paragraph in ‘Science Gossip,’ - 
page 234, 1872. The plan consists of injection with white 
wax. Paraffin wax is what I use injected into the skin after 
the contents have been removed, as Mr. Auld describes. The 
wax is melted by being placed in a vessel immersed in hot 
water, and then injected into the empty skin by a syringe, 
having a very fine orifice, which is inserted into the anal 
opening. A piece of cotton, slipped round the last pair of 
claspers, should be held by the fingers against the syringe to 
prevent the larva slipping off, which it is very liable to do, and 
thereby spoil the operation. The melted wax must be urged 
very gradually into the skin, until the exterior is plump and 
full, but not so full as to distend any part in an unnatural 
manner. The skin should be held to the syringe till the wax 
becomes bard enongh not to run out, and at the same time 
pliable enough to yield to the fingers, so that any impressions, 
indentations, or other markings requisite can be made, and 
the juncture of the segments run round with a blunt knife, 
lightly or deeply, as the subject may require. The larva can 
be curled or bent round, the head drawn back as in Vinula, 
or the front segments pusbed together as in some of the 
Sphinges. The Geometer larve can be bent into their natural 
form ; warts, humps, &c., brought into full relief; claspers and 
legs arranged to satisfaction; and, in short, all the fantastic 
forms which adorn the exterior of this magazine, imitated 
to an almost exact copy of Nature,—all which results are quite 
unattainable with the inflation system. 
In preserving larve in this way, the principal points to 
guard against are as follows:—Too rapidly or vigorously 
filling up the skin, in which case the wax may burst through 
