32 NATURE STUDY 



orchards where fruit is falling, explore the bark of tree trunks, 

 work along the banks oi streams or ponds. For insects which 

 live in the water, a special water net will be necessary; one with 

 wider meshes so that it may be drawn readily thru the water. A 

 special kind of collecting is that called "sweeping." In a meadow 

 or pasture, especially if many flowers are in bloom, whip the net 

 quickly back and forth over the tops of the weeds and grasses. 

 You will be sure to catch a host of small insects and spiders in 

 this way. Do not collect the flying insects alone, but collect lar- 

 vae, caterpillars, cocoons, chrysalides, nests, leaves and twigs 

 bearing galls or showing the effects of insect attack, and all other 

 specimens which illustrate the life of insects. 



The preservation of the collected specimens is simple, and 

 easily learned. The insects are to be pinned up, i. e., each 

 insect is to be mounted by thrusting a special kind ol 

 slender pin (called an insect pin) thru the middle of that part of 

 the body called the thorax, the part ot the body from which the 

 wings arise. Beetles, only, are not pinned thru the middle of the 

 thorax, but thru the right wing-cover close to the median line of 

 the body. These insect pins must be bought of a dealer in nat- 

 uralists' supplies, and can be 

 had in various sizes. The 

 sizes most commonly used 

 are numbers i and 3 of the 

 kind of pins called Klaeger 

 .pins. (The dealer may not 

 have the Klaeger pins, but a 

 kind called Karlsbader; num- 

 bers 3 and 5 .are the size to 



Fig. 11. "Pinned-up" insect buy of this kind.) TheSC 



pins cost 12 or 15 cents a hundred. The insects should be pushed 

 up on the pin so that only one-third of the pin projects above the 

 back of the specimen (fig. n). 



Most insects need no turther care than this simple pinning 



