1835.] of Objects of Natural History. 469 



Crustaceous animals, such as crabs,' lobsters, cray-fish, Sec. may be alL 

 preserved in spirit of wine, but they generally lose their colours. Small 

 ones may be dried as they are, but the larger specimens require to have 

 the inside removed. Crabs are readily cleared, by taking off their shell, 

 and drying it separated from the body, which has been previously freed 

 from all the soft parts it contained. The corrosive sublimate solution is 

 the best thing for the outside of Crustacea, but arsenical paste should be 

 smeared within. Great care is requisite to prevent Crustacea being injured 

 in drying, and they should be carefully packed in a good quantity of 

 cotton, or the legs or antennae will assuredly be broken. 



Crustacea may be killed, if altogether breathers of water, merely by tak- 

 ing them out of that element. If partially or wholly livers upon the land, 

 spirit of wine kills them readily enough. But care must be taken in 

 handling some of them ; for the crabs in particular make nothing of cast- 

 ing off a leg or two, with as much ease as a lizard does his tail. 



Insects. 



The class Insect a contains a vast variety of animals. The mode of pre- 

 serving them, however, is very much alike in all. 



Insects are found in so many situations, that it is impossible to particu- 

 larize more than a few. Upon and within vegetables living and dead; be- 

 tween the bark and the wood, and in the trunks and holes of trees ; in the 

 loose earth at their roots ; under stones or logs of wood that have long been 

 lying on the ground ; at the roots of grass ; between the leaves that grow 

 close along the stem of some plants, as the plantain, sugar-cane, and many 

 of the grasses ; in bones and horns, both within their hollow cavities and in 

 their substance itself. Dead carcases of animals and putrid animal matter 

 of all kinds contain some very beautiful specimens : and some of the finest 

 kinds are found in water, both stagnant and running ; in short, it is more 

 easy to tell where insects may not be found than where they may. 



Insects that feed upon trees and high shrubs, may be caught by placing 

 a table cloth beneath, and beating the branches with a pole ; when the in- 

 sects are shaken down upon the cloth, and easily seen. A white chattah 

 answers the same purpose almost equally well with a table cloth, and is more 

 convenient to carry ; besides being serviceable in another way. They are 

 easily taken in a net made of curtain gauze formed like a cabbage net, 

 and fastened to a hoop at the end of a long stick. By making the handle 

 of your net with joints like a fishing-rod, you are enabled to reach the 

 higher branches. In using this net, which is well adapted for butter-flies, 

 dragon-flies, bees, wasps, and other insects that are caught on the wing, 

 a peculiar turn is given to bring the tail part of the net over the han- 

 dle, doubling it on the rim ; by which means the prey is prevented from 

 escaping. Another net may be made to fold up, having two poles or 

 handles on each side, made of bamboo, or other easily bending wood : 

 these handles are straight until near the top, when they are bent off at nearly 

 a right angle, and fastened together with a string, or two pieces of wire, 

 looped together to form a hinge: the lower part of the side poles are fast- 

 ened together at a proper distance, say two and a half or three feet, with a 

 small cord, leaving enough of the lower ends, to form handles, by which to 

 use the net. The whole is then to be covered with gauze, from the upper 

 end down to the cord below, when the net is complete. To use it, little 

 skill is required ; one handle is taken in each hand, and it is held up open, 

 against any insect it is wished to catch, and shut up by bringing the handles 

 together quickly, when the insect is secured between the fold of the gauze. 

 Large pincers with loops or rings, and with gauze between their loops, are 

 also used ; but the common nets, described above, are the best ; and, indeed, 

 all that are necessary. Coleopterous insects, or beetles ; Hymeropterous, or 

 wasps, bees, &c. ; Hemipterous, or bugs, &c, and, indeed, all others, save 

 the Neuroptera, or dragon-flies, an d the Lepidoptera, or butter-flies, moths, 

 &c. when caught, are to be put into a bottle containing a little spirit of 

 3 p 



