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THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



be found very useful. A strong jack-knife for ripping off bark, and a small 

 tin cannister will complete the outfit necessary for the ordinary run of collect- 

 ing. Of course, special methods of collecting may require special apparatus, 

 as for instance beating trees and hedges is an excellent way to get many 

 species, and for this a beating net is required ; if you can secure the assistance 

 of a friend, a tablecloth with a stick run in the hem at each end answers 

 capitally, or if you are alone an open umbrella, more epecially if lined on the 

 inside with white calico will be found most useful for catching the insects as 

 they fall. Another simple but very useful tool is a small pointed garden 

 trowel ; a square of mackintosh to kneel upon when working in a damp place 

 is also desirable, it is also convenient to put the rubbish containing beetles 

 upon for examination, such as haystack refuse, dung, &c. 



To the above must be added a pocket magnifying glass, as many beetles are 

 too small to be examined with the unaided vision. The form of magnifying 

 glass best suited for the purpose is that with three lenses of various powers 

 shutting into a horn case. 



Beetles are so numerous, and their habitats so various, that they may be 

 said to occur almost everywhere under stones, and refuse of all kinds, in the 

 dung of all animals, and on trees and herbage of every kind; some only on 

 one special plant, others only in water, and so on, that collectors generally 

 work out certain special lines and methods of collecting, according to the 

 time at their disposal, the locality in which they may reside, or for many other 

 reasons. 



It is absolutely necessary that all the specimens should be well set. I feel 

 sure that it is more important to impress this fact upon the minds of young 

 collectors in reference to beetles, that it is with respect to butterflies and 

 moths. The lepidoptera being large and generally recognised at once, the 

 interest of the collector is aroused to set them as well as he can, but in the 

 case of coleoptera the specimens and species are very numerous, often of small 

 size, and easily captured, so that the collector catches and bottles up hundreds, 

 perhaps thousands, of specimens ; but he does not feel sufficient interest in 

 them to work patiently for days at the setting of such an immense number of 

 insects, about which he knows little or nothing, and has no idea whether 

 they are common or rare, the result being, in the majority of cases, that he 

 sets more or less imperfectly the larger and perhaps also some of the medium 

 sized ones which are not difficult, whilst the smaller ones are kept for a time 

 and eventually thrown away. 



I cannot help repeating here what I said in an earlier paper of this series, 

 that to catch insects and then not take the trouble to set them as perfectly as 

 possible is nothing less than wanton destruction, and cannot be too strongly 



