298 



PRACTICAL TAXIDERMY. 



this is fixed a tin cylinder, B, having a slot cut in at D, in 

 which a diaphragm, C, works, and is prevented from falling 

 out by a stud fixed to its inside, and from falling inside by 

 the stud above 0. To use this, the bottom must be stopped 

 with a cork, through which a piece of stout wire is bolted, 

 the wire to come up to, but just underneath, the slot D, allowing 

 the diaphragm to close. In action this machine is worked thus : 

 Supposing an insect is seen resting on a flat surface, such as 

 palings, a wall, or the trunk of a tree, you having previously 

 removed the cork and pulled the diaphragm out of the slot 

 to its full extent, take aim, as it were, at the insect with the 

 open mouth of B, and rapidly cover him with it. The moth, or 

 what not, as a matter of course, flies 

 toward the light which is at the bot- 

 tom of the bottle. A; directly it has 

 done so you push in the diaphragm, 

 which of course effectually bottles 

 him up. Now enter the cork in the 

 mouth, B, and pull out the diaphragm 

 again to allow the cork to pass to 

 its place in the mouth of the cyanide 

 bottle, which stopping is of course 

 fatal to the insect. 



The " sugaring drum " referred to 

 is thus described and figured by Dr. 

 Knaggs ; and it will be seen that in 



its main principle it is similar to my diaphragm bottle, sans 

 cyanide : 



" This is a hollow metal tube of two or three inches diameter, 

 ov^r one end of which a piece of gauze has been strained, while 

 at the other end a valve, to open and shut the mouth, works in 

 a transverse slit (shown in Fig. 54). To use it we open the 

 valve and deftly place the mouth of the drum over the insect 

 which, in nineteen cases out of twenty, flies towards the gauze. 

 We then seize the opportunity to close the valve, and pushing 

 the corked piston represented at the right side of the figure 

 against it, once more open the valve, and force the capture up 

 to the gauze, through which it may be pinned, and the piston 

 should then be withdrawn with the insect stuck upon it." 



Fig. 53.— Diaphragm Bottle. 



