A Scientific Slaughterer 



is destroyed by the mere contact of our 

 fingers. If the insect were dead, if it were 

 really a corpse, how great would be our dif- 

 ficulty in obtaining a like result ! Each of us 

 can kill an insect by brutally crushing it under 

 foot; but to kill it neatly, with no sign of 

 injury, is not an easy operation, is not an 

 operation which any one can perform. How 

 many would be utterly perplexed if they were 

 called upon to kill, then and there, without 

 crushing it, a hardy little insect which, even 

 when you cut off its head, goes on struggling 

 for a long time after! One has to be a prac- 

 tical entomologist to think of the various 

 ways of asphyxiation; and even here success 

 would be doubtful with primitive methods, 

 such as the fumes of benzine, or burning 

 sulphur. In this unwholesome atmosphere, 

 the insect flounders about too long and loses 

 its glory. We must have recourse to more 

 heroic measures, such as the terrible exhala- 

 tions of prussic acid emanating slowly from 

 strips of paper steeped in cyanide of potas- 

 sium, or else and better still, as being free 

 from danger to the insect-hunter, the all- 

 powerful fumes of bisulphide of carbon. It 

 is quite an art, you see and an art which 

 has to call to its aid the formidable arsenal 

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