A naturalist's work-room. 235 



which I presume these Erebi^ stand, connecting the 

 Noctu(B with the Geometrce. 



Sometimes one of these large Moths is known to re- 

 side in a certain hole in a rock, or a hollow tree, to 

 which it resorts with such uniformity, during its hours 

 of repose, that it may almost with certainty be dis- 

 lodged on any afternoon, by giving a smart rap on 

 the outside, when out it rushes with such a startling 

 suddenness, and with so irregular and zigzag a mo- 

 tion, as often to defy capture, even though we are 

 on the watch for it. 



A naturalist's work-room. 



Let me describe a working naturalist's laboratory. 

 Suppose the time to be 2 p.m., after a morning's 

 excursion to the mountain. In the room are three 

 large tables, one of them against the window, at 

 which a negro youth is sitting. Before him lie half 

 a dozen birds, one of which he is skinning ; beside 

 him lie scissors, knives, nippers, forceps, a pepper- 

 box of pounded chalk, a jar of arsenical soap, 

 needles and thread, cotton-wool, and other apparatus, 

 with several cones of paper ready to drop each skin 

 into, when finished. Across the room are strung 

 lines in various directions, from which are suspended 

 some hundreds of similar paper cones, each tenanted 

 by a bird-skin ; they are thus placed in order that they 

 may dry out of the reach of rats, which nevertheless 

 sometimes manage ingeniously to scramble along the 

 slender lines and gnaw the feet and wing-tips of the 

 specimens. On another table is a large bowl half 



