76 PRESERVING INSECTS. 



Guiana, cannot be made permanent, by any process 

 after the death of the insect ; but those colours can 

 be renewed with great and durable effect. Suppose 

 your correspondent were to take an English dragon 

 fly (which I must inform him I have never dis- 

 sected), and sever the head from the thorax, the 

 thorax from the abdomen, and then subdivide the 

 abdomen at every third ring : this would enable him 

 to clear away all the moist internal parts, from 

 whence the colours draw their source. A nearly 

 transparent shell would remain ; and he would only 

 have to introduce into it colours similar to those 

 which the insect exhibited in life, after having 

 washed it well with the solution. The joining again 

 of the dissected parts would complete the process. 

 All this appears difficult : still it may be effected. 

 I have read somewhere of a Frenchman who could 

 harness a flea : I, myself, have dissected the Cay- 

 enne grasshopper, and renewed its colours with great 

 success. In 1808, after dissecting the bill of the 

 toucan, I completely succeeded in renewing the 

 blue, which had been removed by the knife ; and I 

 believe the specimen which I produced was the 

 first ever exhibited in its renewed colours since the 

 discovery of America. In the Wanderings^ is a full 

 account of this. 



With regard to using the spirit of turpentine in 

 preserving insects, I can only say, that I have long 

 and successfully made use of the spirit of turpen- 

 tine. In 1808, having tried many useless experi- 

 ments to expel living insects from dead ones, and 

 from other preparations in natural history, on open- 



