3956 Insects. 



tomed to the indications of those objects for which I was searching, 

 I found that, so far from there "being no larvae before me, they were 

 really there in hundreds. This was a lesson which I resolved should 

 not be lost upon me, and I hope it will also be useful to others. 



Having thus urged the necessity of continued search, I will take it 

 for granted that the collector has succeeded in finding the objects of 

 his pursuit, but he sees before him some full-grown, and some very 

 small, and probably wishes to know whether he should collect all. 

 Unless the small ones be indeed very small, he may safely collect 

 them, as these larvae feed up in a very few days, and if he keeps his 

 leaves from drying, they will be able to feed up after he has collected 

 them. It is not necessary to gather the branches, to pick the leaves 

 is quite sufficient ; only bearing in mind to put them at once into the 

 collecting-tins, and to keep them where they will be rather moist af- 

 terwards. We will imagine the collector to have proceeded from bush 

 to bush, till he has collected a tin-full of leaves of various sorts, inha- 

 bited by a variety of larvae of Nepticulae. He then returns home, and 

 the question might be asked, " Are the larvae to be left in the tin, as 

 collected ? " By no means ; for if so, will not all the species become 

 mixed ? The most pressing thing to be done directly the collector 

 returns home, is to turn over the leaves he has collected, and to sort 

 them very carefully, putting each kind of leaf by itself; and where 

 two or more species of larvae occur in the same sort of leaf, to subdi- 

 vide those leaves according to the different species of larvae, and then 

 each separate batch should be carefully rolled up in some soft paper, 

 and put into a tin or glass jar. 



It is not advisable to leave the larvae unsorted in the collecting-tins 

 a moment longer than can be avoided ; otherwise some of the larvae 

 will have become full-fed, and have crept out of some of the leaves, 

 and then how is the collector to know to which sort they belong ? 



At the expiration of a week after the larvae have been collected, it 

 may be taken for granted that they will all have assumed the pupa 

 state, and the rolls of soft paper should be carefully opened, and the 

 cocoons of each roll, which will be found either attached to the paper, 

 or to the leaves, and generally in little clusters, should be then put 

 into little glass tubes, and labelled according to the plant from which 

 they came, and the mode in which they mined that plant. 



7. At what time of the year should we look for the Larva of Nep- 

 ticulce ? Probably all the species are double-brooded, (N. aurella has 

 indeed many broods in the year, there being few months in which its 



