268 



PRACTICAL TAXIDERMY. 



be loosened, wlien tlie rods can be drawn out, Tinjolnted, and 

 slipped into a bag or a pocket specially sewn in the breast of 

 the coat to receive them. 



When portability is not a desideratum, the rods may be easily 

 made of green hazel (or nut tree) wands, bent and secured into 

 shape and dried in the sun, or up a chimney, or otherwise a strong 

 cane may be steamed (or boiled) and dried in like manner ; few 

 people, I opine, however, care to carry out from a town two long 

 roughly-shaped rods of 5ft. or 6ft. long in this clumsy fashion. 

 I did not wish to describe this net at all, as it is, in my opinion, 

 a most un-sportsmanlike or un-entomological weapon, as nothing 

 can escape it. Indeed, a friend of mine not inaptly describes it 



as the "gobbler;" and it 

 does really "gobble" up any 

 insect it is used against. 



The continental or ring 

 net is now generally used. 

 For one variety a tin or 

 brass Y is made, into the 

 bottom arm of which a stick 

 fits. The spreading arms 

 serve to hold a cane, which 

 is bent round, and each end 

 thrust in. A net of gauze 

 or leno is attached. My ob- 

 jection to this net is that 

 the cane often slips out of 

 the arms of the Y, which 

 latter also breaks at the 

 junction; added to which 

 it takes up a great deal of 

 room, not being very easily 

 doubled without the risk of 

 breaking. The points which 

 a net should possess in per- 

 fection are — first, strength ; 

 secondly, portability ; and, thirdly, adaptability to more than 

 one use. I shall endeavour to show by the next two figures my 

 ideas of a perfect net. 



Tia. 41.— Plan o? •• Ring "-Net. 



