[35] 



COLLECTING AND PRESERVING INSECTS RILEY. 



allowed to assume the position shown at A, and the net may be wrapped 

 about the frame and the whole inserted in an ordinary umbrella cover. 



The Sieve. — This useful aid to good collecting- has not been gen- 

 erally employed by American entomologists. It facilitates the finding 

 of small insects living under old leaves, in moss, in decayed trees, in 

 fungi, in ants' nests, or in the ground. Any ordinary sieve about a 

 foot in diameter and with meshes of about 

 one- fifth of an inch will answer, though for 

 durability and convenience of carriage one 

 made of two wire or brass rings and muslin 

 (Fig. 54), as follows, is the best. The ends 

 of the wire netting should be bent around 

 the ring so as not to project. A piece of 

 common muslin about 1 foot wide and long 

 enough to go around the circumference of 

 one of the rings is then sewed together so as 

 to form a kind of cylinder or bag without bot- 

 tom, and the upper and lower rims of this 

 bag are then sewed on around the two rings. 

 The whole instrument thus forms a bag, the 

 top of which is kept open by the simple wire 

 ring, and the bottom is closed by the second 

 ring covered with the wire netting. After 

 choosing a suitable locality a white cloth is 

 spread as evenly as possible on the ground; 

 the collector then takes the sieve, places therein two or three handfnls 

 of the material to be sifted, returns to his cloth, and, holding with his 

 right hand the lower ring and with the left hand the upper ring, shakes 

 the sieve over the cloth. The larger particles and specimens are re- 

 tained in the sieve while the smaller fall through the meshes on to the 

 cloth. Oare must be taken that the siftings form an even and thin 

 layer on the surface of the cloth, so as to be easily examined from time 

 to time. If the locality is favorable many insects will be seen at the 

 first glance crawling or running about, and these can easily be picked 

 up by means of a moistened brush, or with the forceps. Many other 

 insects, however, either feign death or, at any rate, do not move until 

 after the lapse of several minutes, and the proper investigation of a sin- 

 gle sifting often requires much time, and patience will be more fully re- 

 warded here than in any other mode of collecting. 



The size of the wire meshes given above is best adapted for sifting 

 the fragments of old decayed trees, which farnish the most frequent 

 material for the use of the sieve, but for sifting ants' nests, soil, etc., a 

 sieve with smaller meshes is desirable. 



The sieve is indispensable to the Coleopterist, the Arachnologist, and 

 to the specialist in the smaller Hemiptera and Hymenoptera, but it is 

 also useful for most other orders, many interesting species existing which 

 can be secured in numbers only by this mode of collecting. Many 



Fig. 54, — The sieve. «., wire nettino 

 (original) . 



