60 INTRODUCTION TO ZOOLOGY. 



eighteen inches deep, and iiiaj^ be made of India linen, 

 cheese cloth, bobinet, Swiss, or mosquito bar. For a 

 handle, fasten a stick like a broom handle to a hoop 

 about ten inches in diameter made of stout wire. When 

 an insect is captured, it is killed by dropping it into a 

 cyanide bottle. A cyanide bottle may be made from 

 any wide-mouthed bottle. In the bottom of the bottle 

 is placed about half an ounce of potassium cyanide, 

 which is a most deadly poison. This is covered with 

 sawdust well shaken down, over which some plaster 

 of Paris mixed with water is then poured until a 

 smooth surface is obtained. The bottle should be 

 left open until the plaster of Paris is dry. It should 

 then be stopped up, when the fumes of the cyanide, 

 rising through the porous plaster of Paris, will fill the 

 bottle, killing any insect that may be dropped into it. 



After an insect is killed, it should be pinned. The 

 pins used for this purpose are insect pins, which are 

 long, slender, very sharp-pointed, and have round 

 heads. Beetles are pinned through the right elytron. 

 The wings of butterflies and moths should be spread 

 out and held in position on a setting board until they 

 become dry. A setting board is a board with a groove 

 in the middle to receive the body of the insect while 

 the wings lie flat on the side. The wings should be 

 drawn forward until the hind edges of the fore wings 

 are in a straight line. 



A good book for the study of insects is Comstock's 

 Manual of Entomology. Much valuable information 

 about insects may be found in the United States 

 Agricultural Reports and in the reports of the various 

 state entomologists. There is no one book that will 

 enable one to determine the species of every insect he 

 may find, nor even all the species of any one order. 

 A series of tables for the determination of the family 

 to which an insect belongs may be found at the back 

 of this book. 



