536 ENTOMOLOGICAL INSTRUMENTS, &c. 
other purpose. Beetles may be relaxed by plunging 
them for a short time in warm water or spirits of wine?. 
Many moths of the tribe of Tinea L. are so extremely 
minute, that it is almost impossible to set them without 
defacing their characters: indeed, the trunk of some is 
so small as not to admit being pierced by a pin. ‘These, 
therefore, it is adviseable merely to gum upon card, ex- 
panding their wings (which the gum will easily retain in 
their proper situation) with a camel’s-hair pencil. IEf 
you have two specimens, you may fix one in the natural 
position when at rest,—a method I should recommend 
with respect to other Lepidoptera, and indeed insects in 
general. Pezold advises that, by way of contrast, white 
card should be used for dark-coloured species of these 
little moths, and black for such as are pale. As the 
wings of different Coleopterous groups, as well as those of 
Hymenoptera, Diptera, &c., vary in their neuration®, 
you should, whenever you can, set open the elytra and 
expand the wings of one specimen at least in each group, 
which will be very important to you in making out the 
characters of your genera. 
When sufficiently dried, your insects should be trans- 
ferred from the setting-boards, either to their place in 
your cabinet or to the store-box before described, till 
you have leisure to investigate them. 
However tedious some of the foregoing manipulations 
may seem, they are in fact much less so than those re- 
quired in several other branches of Natural History, 
where, in addition to the labour of catching, the nice and 
* Mr. Samouelle (Useful Compendium, 321) recommends a some- 
what different method. 
» Vou. III. p. 625 —. 
