﻿171 



Treatment of recently hatched larvce. — When dealing with 

 such small things as recently hatched larvae, it is desirable to 

 have them in rather close quarters for several reasons ; one is, 

 that it often happens that they have a tendency to be restless, 

 and they may get off the food if they have too much room, and 

 die. Another thing, a small piece of food in a large cage is 

 apt to wither quickly, and if a lot of food is used it is very 

 troublesome to change them. After very many trials of 

 various plans, the following method has yielded me the best 

 results. Get two wide-mouth bottles, the larger of the two 

 having a mouth sufficiently wide to allow the smaller to pass 

 quite inside, place the young larvae inside the smaller bottle 

 with some recently-gathered food, but carefully avoid all 

 moisture on the surface of leaves, etc. ; tie over the mouth of 

 bottle with a piece of washed-out calico. Now place this 

 smaller bottle mouth downwards inside the larger, then tie 

 over the mouth of the larger bottle with calico, and then on 

 reversing ends of this, the smaller bottle stands mouth upper- 

 most, and by this means the condensation of moisture from 

 the plant takes place on the side of the larger, i.e., outer 

 bottle, leaving the inner bottle free from it. The condensation 

 of moisture is always a great trouble in the earlier stages of 

 breeding. All plants are necessarily full of sap, and the 

 exhalation from their stomata settles on the sides of the glass 

 cylinder or bottle, and the delicate little larvae often get 

 drowned in it, as most of us have proved. This doubled 

 casing of glass answers admirably, as the condensation, if it 

 takes place at all, will be always on the outer bottle, and 

 consequently fraught with no danger to the tiny and tender 

 brood. This may seem rather a complicated matter, but in 

 practice it is by no means difficult. 



According to my experience the natural sap of the plant is 

 a more healthy food than the more watery juices that result 

 from food-plants immersed in water. Always, at least by 

 choice, gather your food-plants in the early morning, and if 

 possible carry them home in tins. By this means you have 

 the whole plant full of natural sap. If gathered in the 

 middle of the day, the sun will have materially exhausted 

 your food, and it will then often wither very quickly. Then, 

 again, when selecting branches of trees or shrubs to take 



