THE YOUNG NATUEALIST. 



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drawers, and stored in a dry place. There are various ways of constructing 

 boxes and cabinets for holding insects, some of which I will proceed to des- 

 cribe, and endeavour to point out some of the advantages or otherwise, which 

 in my opinion, attend the use of each particular plan. 



There is a method which may be seen in most of the shops of naturalists 

 and birdstuffers, 1 mean that of placing the insects in a shallow box with a 

 glass top, so that they may be displayed to the view. This plan often com- 

 mends itself to young collectors, as it affords a means of showing off their 

 captures, and so carries out the ideas with which they started. But there 

 are several very grave objections to the show-case system ; the real end of 

 making a collection ought to be to preserve the specimens in the most per- 

 fect manner, so as to have them for reference — practical use being the object, 

 not ornament. The show-case method is highly unscientific, as all insects, 

 particularly butterflies and moths, soon lose their colour when exposed to the 

 light, and no one who has any wish to preserve his specimens will adopt it; 

 for who would like to see his collection, no matter how beautiful and showy 

 it may have been when first arranged, soon reduced to a lot of faded and 

 worthless specimens, and no longer " a thing of beauty and a joy for ever." 

 Of course, if any one wishes to arrange butterflies and moths for the purpose 

 of decoration, some plan of this kind must be adopted. I have seen some 

 very beautiful examples of this kind of drawing-room decoration, notably one 

 in particular in which the insects were arranged on black velvet ; but to all 

 these beautiful and interesting ornamental collections there is the drawback, 

 which T have previously pointed out, that the beauty of the colours will soon 

 be destroyed by the bleaching action of the light. The plan, however, has a 

 legitimate use. For educational purposes, for exhibition in schools and 

 popular museums, perhaps it is the best arrangement for showing insects and 

 other objects of natural history, particularly if the cases have covers of 

 American cloth or other suitable material to protect the specimens from light, 

 and so attached to them as to be easily removed during examination, or on 

 occasions when they are likely to be inspected by a number of people, or dur- 

 ing class hours ; but these cases should be fitted up in such a manner as to 

 show clearly and in an interesting manner some facts connected with the 

 insects, as e.g. their life-history, and not to be filled merely with rows of 

 specimens. Something of this kind should I think be placed in every school 

 in the kingdom. Those for board schools should be simple, and contain only 

 a few examples of the best known species, showing the metamorphosis of each 

 insect, as the Common White and the Tortoiseshell butterflies, Tiger Moth, &c, 

 each specimen should, of course, be very plainly and descriptively labelled. 

 Those for high schools or colleges may be proportionately advanced, and show 



