100 TAXIDERMY. 



serve them like insects. Their flabby abdomen 

 changes in drying, as well as their colours, and 

 we are obliged to put them into spirits. There are 

 some species, however, which preserve tolerably well, 

 such as the bird-catcher (mygale), and others : the 

 very small ones may be pricked like insects, but 

 they generally lose their colours when they die. We 

 must seek them under bushes, in the caves of rocks, 

 in deserted houses, or those which are seldom in- 

 habited, in gloomy places, under stones, under 

 rotten trees. There is a species in France which 

 is found in the water ; some exotic species have a 

 very dangerous bite. 



Jt is not so easy to procure nocturnal butterflies, 

 known to naturalists by the generic names of 

 phalaena.9 bombyx, noctua, &c. as those which fly 

 by day. The latter fly from flower to flower in the 

 heat of the sun ; we find them in all situations, 

 some (the pontiaa) frequent gardens, and all cul- 

 tivated places, or their neighbourhoods ; others 

 prefer barren groitnd ; others, (of the genus of the 

 hippprchia,) constantly remain in the forests. It is 

 not the same with nocturnal butterflies : they never 

 show themselves by day ; some nourish themselves 

 with flowers, like the common butterflies ; others 

 only seek each other to propagate their species, and 

 the females deposit their eggs on the plant which 

 is most suitable to generate them. This duty ful- 

 filled, they exist but a few days, and the males soon 



