Insects. 3433 



A new Method of Capturing and Killing minute Lepidoptera, Diptera, fyc. — Every 

 entomologist must at times have felt a strong distaste for the common practice of col- 

 lecting Tinese in pill-boxes. This clumsy system was long the source of annoyance 

 to me, but accident at length furnished me with a substitute for so primitive an ope- 

 ration. During the early months of the year, at the time when insect life is reviving, 

 and every species is looked upon as an earnest of returning spring, I frequently exa- 

 mined the minute species of Diptera haunting my windows, and sighed for some mode 

 of preserving them in all their delicate beauty. Happening, in 1849, to possess, by a 

 lucky chance, some small bottles, about li inch long and i an inch wide, made out of 

 glass tubing, and which were originally intended for preserving spiders, the thought 

 struck me that they would serve my purpose. I captured several minute species of 

 Diptera in my Lilliputian bottles, and plunging the bottles for a moment into boiling 

 water, the specimens were instantly killed, and they were then easily mounted upon 

 cards covered with a moderately strong solution of gum tragacanth. My success in 

 these attempts was so perfect, that it led me to consider whether I could not apply the 

 bottles to a more extended use. I essayed the capture and killing of Micro-Lepido- 

 ptera in the same manner, and found the specimens more easily secured, killed, and 

 set, than by any other method I had previously tried. The only thing that remained 

 to be done was to contrive some method of carrying the bottles in my rambles, in a 

 state of quiescence. To this end I made a model of a small flat case in pasteboard, 

 somewhat like a small pocket-book, and capable of holding fourteen bottles, and got a 

 book-binder to make me a dozen similar ones, covered with leather; these I afterwards 

 lined with " swan's-down" calico, and found them answer my purpose most admirably. 

 The manner in which they are used is the following, — first premising that the net em- 

 ployed for the capture of Micro-Lepidoptera, minute Diptera, &c, is the spring sweep- 

 ing-net sold by Downing, and made of strong white canvas. Starting from home with 

 six or eight or more cases of bottles in my left-hand jacket -pocket, on reaching the 

 hunting-ground, the first operation is to empty the whole of the contents of one case 

 into my left-hand waistcoat-pocket, excepting one bottle, which I retain by the cork 

 between my teeth, thus leaving both hands at liberty to wield the net and beating- 

 stick. On a specimen being swept into the net, the beating-stick is placed between my 

 knees, the bottle drawn away from the cork, which continues to be held by the teeth, 

 the insect, as it mounts the side of the net, is covered by the inverted bottle, when the 

 hand not being allowed to obscure the bottle too much, the insect flies upwards towards 

 the light, and the fore-finger of the same hand is immediately placed over the mouth 

 of the bottle, after which the cork can be inserted by means of the teeth, or of the 

 thumb and finger of the right hand. The bottle is then deposited in the right-h&nA 

 waistcoat-pocket, and so on, until the left-hand waistcoat-pocket is exhausted, when 

 the bottles with their contents are transferred to the empty case, and that, when filled, 

 to the right-hand jacket-pocket, and so on to the end of the chapter. I have been thus 

 particular, at the risk of being considered tedious, knowing that many a useful scheme 

 is often thrown aside, owing to some little error in the manipulation. Every friend, 

 without exception, who has seen my bottles and cases used in the field, has forthwith 

 adopted the plan. The chief advantages of it are the following. Specimens are se- 

 cured with at least twice the speed as by any other method,— an object of no little im- 

 portance to a man of business, who can only snatch an hour or two in the day for an 

 entomological ramble. The interior surface of the bottles being smooth, and of a non- 

 absorbent nature, insects live a much longer time therein, and are not battered and 

 X. R 



