No. 4.-— 1848.] ON COLLECTING LEPIDOPTERA. 



IS 



of the country (Colombo), that true Noctua are not commonly 

 met with on the wing. It may be from the prevalence of the 

 cinnamon plant, on which few feed. 



Bat we must now return to the collector, and instruct him 

 how to preserve his captured insects. For this purpose he must 

 have a pair of spring forceps, a setting-needle, (which is a fine 

 pin or needle, bent at the point, and fixed in a handle,) pins of 

 all thicknesses and lengths from four inches to half an inch, and 

 a settivg-box, which should be lined with cork and be of 

 sufficient size to contain 80 or 100 specimens ; it should be just 

 deep enough to hold the insect pins, and the cork should be 

 half as thick again as in the store-boxes, so that when the pin 

 is driven home in the latter the insects' wings may be just a 

 little above the surface. The box must be air-tight, and well 

 supplied with camphor in neat bags, for the double purpose of 

 killing the insects and preserving them from mites, &c. 



Let him now take the specimen to be set, having previously 

 given it a slight squeeze under the thorax or chest, and run a 

 proper-sized pin through the middle of the thorax, inclining it 

 slightly towards the body, taking care that it is at perfect right- 

 angles with the wings. Having stuck it down uprightly through 

 the cork, let him take two pins of proper length, and stick them 

 in with the forceps, at a little distance from the base of the 

 inferior wings, pressing them down towards the surface of the 

 cork, inclining outward towards the outer angle of the superior 

 wings. Then, introducing the point of the setting-needle under 

 the wings, gently push them into the position of a butterfly 

 expanded upon a flower. If the long pins press the wings 

 sufficiently down on the cork, the roughness will keep them in 

 their proper place ; if not, fasten down the long pins by common 

 thick ones bent in two right-angles. A good substitute for the 

 long pins may be found in the thorns of the prickly pear, or the 

 inside rib of the cocoa-nut. leaf termed by the natives " ikkils." 

 In this state leave them till dry, or set, the length of time 



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