344 



Taxidermy . 



may be transfixed, stuck on cork, their wings expanded and kept in 

 the required position with pins and slips of paper or card for a few 

 days, when they can be placed in the insect box. Large bodied 

 moths cannot be killed by a pinch ; it is therefore unfortunately 

 requisite to pin them alive and kill them by inserting a red hot 

 needle into the abdomen. These large bodied moths require the 

 contents of the abdomen to be removed, otherwise they will 

 speedily decay. Grasshoppers, " mantises" and "animated straws," 

 &c, require the contents of the abdomen to be removed, and 

 replaced with cotton, after a few drops of the solution of 

 corrosive sublimate have been applied to the inside. Centipedes, 

 spiders, and scorpions, should be similarly treated, but they are best 

 preserved in spirits. An insect net is indispensable to the collector. 

 The simplest as well as the best is made of 3 feet 6 or 8 inches of 

 brass wire, the thickness of a quill, with the two ends of the wire 

 turned off at right angles to form a handle three or four inches long, 

 and the remainder bent so as to make a ring a foot in diameter. Tie 

 the ends tightly together. Make a bag of gauze or mosquito netting 

 three feet deep, and attach it to the ring. The net should be fixed 

 to a stick of any length convenient to handle. ' It is chiefly used in 

 capturing butterflies and other winged insects during flight or upon 

 flowers, but may be used in a variety of other ways. But the finest 

 specimens of butterflies and moths are not those captured with the 

 net, but those which are bred from the caterpillar and chrysalis. In 

 the former case the caterpillar should be enclosed in a box with a 

 gauze covering to admit air, and daily supplied with leaves of the 

 kind on which it was found feeding, until it assumes the chrysalis 

 state. I may conclude this subject by mentioning that many night- 

 flying insects are attracted by a light, and may thus be brought 

 within reach of the collector. Crabs of all kinds, except very small 

 ones (which may be treated as insects), are best prepared by remov- 

 ing the shell from the back with the knife, cleaning out all the soft 

 parts of the interior, extracting (by holes at the joints) with a wire 

 the contents of the great claws, soaking the whole for a couple of 

 hours in fresh water, anointing the inside with arsenical soap, re- 

 placing the shell, and laying the specimen on a board to dry, with 

 the legs pinned up as required. Care must be taken however that 



