ENTOMOLOGICAL INSTRUMENTs, &c. 527 
has often struck me that the cavity of a modern hat, if 
lined with cork, might be made a very useful receptacle 
for these animals in a long excursion. Indeed, an active 
Entomologist is never at a loss for an apparatus, but often 
makes his most valuable captures when unprovided with 
other instruments than his hands and eyes. A careful 
survey of the trunk and branches of trees and shrubs, 
particularly of the underside of their leaves, seldom fails 
to detect many a lurking moth or beetle, which may be 
transfixed or otherwise captured with little trouble by an 
expert hand. In this way an ingenious collector, who 
scarcely knew what a net of any kind was, told me he had 
made his whole collection, which was rather extensive. 
It is, in fact, only by thus detecting them when reposing, 
and adroitly shutting them up along with the leaf on 
which they sit, ina box, that the minute Tinee L. (whose 
beauty and freshness the slightest handling destroys) can 
ordinarily be taken without being injured. _The boxes 
containing them should afterwards be exposed to the 
action of heat, a low degree of which will destroy them. 
_ Enough has been said upon the best modes of catching 
insects:—lI shall next attempt to give you some further 
instructions as to the most effectual one of destroying 
them when caught, and to point out how you are to pro- 
ceed with them after they are dead. As I sufficiently 
rebutted the charge of cruelty in a former letter?, it will 
not be necessary to enter here into that subject. 
I have before recommended to you the use of spzri¢s. 
of wine, and shall here repeat my recommendation; for 
4 Vor. I. Lerrer II. 
