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 i 
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 II 
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-i i 
ments to expel living insects from dead ones, andj 
from other preparations in natural history, on opeu-y 
