CORRESPONDENCE COURSE IN ENTOMOLOGY 



Conducted Under the Auspices of the Agassiz Association. 



Lesson II. The Egg. 



A NEW INDUSTRY. 



To propagate the moths and butterflies of a given locality for market, appears 

 to be a new industry. Scientists have obtained eggs in order to describe them 

 and carefully note the larval and pupal transformations, and many collectors and 

 entomologists have bred a few species from egg and larva. It seems a novel 

 proposition, however, to propagate lepidoptera on a wholesale scale, and to trust 

 to breeding, rather than to the arts of the collector, for your output. 



DEMONSTRATING THE VALUE OF FARMING. 



On the summits of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, at an elevation of 6000 

 feet, in the little town of Truckee, California,, I last year demonstrated that an 

 eighteen-year-old girl could earn fit'ty dollars per week collecting and breeding 

 lepidoptera. This was done without a dollar of capital, with no previous study 

 or knowledge of entomology, without serving any apprenticeship, and with little 

 or no expense. My father was my teacher and constant adviser, and I saved 

 almost every unsalable female moth and butterfly and endeavored to secure her 

 eggs. 



BOOKS SILENT REGARDING INDUSTRY. 



I have searched rare and cosily entomological works in a vain endeavor to 

 find directions regarding breeding from the egg for market. All authors instruct 

 collectors to begin with the caterpillar. All the various methods of collecting 

 with the net, by sugaring, at night, etc., and the rearing of larvae, care of 

 cocoons, and the preservation of insects are fully discussed in the books, but 

 not one tells you that the easiest, most profitable, most prolific method of obtain- 

 ing large quantities of lepidoptera is to secure eggs, lots of eggs, all kinds oi' eggs, 

 and to obtain eggs from the resultant progeny. The great entomologists who 

 have experimented with eggs never thought of selling specimens. They were only 

 interested in the eggs from a scientific, biological standpoint, and that doubtless 

 explains their silence upon the subject of the profit collectors would derive from 

 securing as many eggs as possible. Otherwise they would surely have pub- 

 lished the fact that the simplest method of obtaining vast numbers of cater- 

 pillars is to secure vast numbers of eggs. 



REJECTED MATERIAL MOST VALUABLE. 



The Collector discards and throws away as worthless, the most valuable 

 part of his catch. Of two females of a species new to science, I prefer one that 



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