86 THE LARVAE, OR CATERPILLARS. 



preservation,, when we breed them ourselves ; and it is besides 

 very interesting to have the eggs 01 the different species, as 

 well as the caterpillar and pupa. 



THE EGGS OF INSECTS. 



The eggs of insects preserve their form and colour, in a 

 cabinet, in general without much trouble. Svvammerdam had 

 a method of preserving them, when they appeared to be giving 

 way. He made a perforation within them, with a fine needle, 

 pressed out their contents, afterwards inflated them with a glass 

 blow-pipe, and filled them with a mixture of resin and oil 

 of spike. ^ 



THE LARV.K, OR CATERPILLARS. 



The easiest way of destroying the Caterpillar is by immer- 

 sion in spirits of wine. * They may be retained for a long time 

 in this spirit, without destroying their colour. 



Mr William Weatherhead had an ingenious mode of pre- 

 , serving Larvae. He killed the Caterpillar, as above directed, 

 and having made a small puncture in the tail, gently pressed 

 out the contents of the abdomen, and then filled the skin with 

 fine dry sand, and brought the animal to its natural circum- 

 ference. It is then exposed to the air to dry, and it will have 

 become quite hard in the course of a few hours, after which 

 the sand may be shaken out at the small aperture, and the 

 caterpillar then gummed to a piece of card. 



Another method is, after the entrails are squeezed out, to 

 insert into the aperture a glass tube, which has been drawn to 

 a very fine point. The operator must blow through this pipe, 

 while he keeps turning the skin slowly round, over a charcoal 

 fire , the skin soon becomes hardened, and, after being anointed 

 with oil of spike and resin, it may be placed in a cabinet, when 

 dry. A small straw, or pipe of grass, may be substituted for 

 the glass-pipe. 



Some persons inject them with coloured wax, after they are 

 dried. 



