86 THE LARVA, OR CATERPILLARS, 
preservation, when we breed them ourselves ; and it is besides 
very interesting to have the eggs ot 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. Swammerdam 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 LARVAL, 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 Larve. 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 
vaterpillar 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 
avery 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 ina 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. 
