506 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1748. 



and in these cases the caterpillar has not fallen into the torpid state above men- 

 tioned, as it constantly did when entirely immersed. He had lifted out of the 

 water some of the stigmata of caterpillars that had been quite immersed, and that 

 were so become torpid and motionless ; and these had also soon after shown 

 signs of life and motion. One of the caterpillars, on which Mr. Bonnet 

 made experiments, lived 8 days suspended in the water, and only exposing to the 

 air its posterior stigmata ; that isj only the last two stigmata were out of the 

 water. 



During this time he carefully observed the caterpillar ; and he remarked, from 

 time to time, when the insect moved itself, that little streams of bubbles came 

 out of the anterior stigma on the left side. It appeared to him, by this and some 

 other experiments, that among all the 1 8 stigmata, the two anterior and the two 

 posterior ones are of more use for the respiration of the caterpillars, than any oi 

 the others. He also found, that on choaking up these stigmata with butter, 

 the animal seemed to suffer much more sensibly, than when he so choaked up 

 all the intermediate ones. 



Divers Means for Preserving Jrom Corruption Dead Birds, intended to be sent 

 to Remote Countries, so that they may arrive there in Good Condition. Some 

 oj' which Means may also be employed for Preserving Quadrupeds. Reptiles, 

 Fishes, and Insects. By M. de Reaumur,* F.R.S., and Memb. Royal ^cad. 

 Sc. Paris. Translated from the French by Phil. Hen- Zollman, Esq., F. R. S. 

 N° 487, p. 304. 



The method hitherto practised, is to send them stuffed, viz. to take off their 

 skin with all the feathers on it, from the body and the thighs, leaving the legs, 

 the wings, and for the better conveniency the whole neck with the bill sticking 

 to it. Filling afterwards the skin thus taken off with some soft stuff, either 

 straw, hay, wool, or flax, &c. or even stretching it over a solid mould of the 

 shape of the bird, you give to this skin, as near as possible, the form of the 

 body of the bird, which it had when it covered its flesh and bones. 



The foregoing way of preserving the shape of birds requires a hand used to it, 



• Mons. Reaumur was bom at Rochelle, l683. He quitted his family profession of the civil law, 

 to pursue natural philosophy and natural history, in the latter of which he chiefly excelled. For 

 which purpose going to Paris in 1703, he was admitted into the Academy of Sciences in 1708. His 

 writings on most parts of natural history are very curious and voluminous ; on animals, minerals, in- 

 sects, shells, &c. He wrote on the torpedo, colouring of false stones, construction of thermome- 

 ters, making of tin, china, and of steel from iron ; on which last he published an account in 1722, 

 which procured him a pension of 1000 livres. He wrote the interesting history of the auriferous ri- 

 vers in France, with the easy way in which the grains of gold are extracted from their sands; also 

 curious observations on the nature of flints, on banks of fossil shells for fertilizing the ground, on di- 

 gestion, on insects, on preserving eggs, and hatching and rearing chickens, &c. His History of Insects, 

 in 6 vols. 4to. is distinguished among bis other productions as a valuable work. M. Reaumur died in 

 1757* at 74 years of ^ge. 



