HOW TO COLLECT DIPTERA 
(TWO-WINGED ELIES), 
WITH NOTES ON THE HABITS OF THE PERFECT 
INSECTS AND LARVAE. 
List of Articles Required. 
An entomologist's collecting -net. — This can be obtained from any 
dealer in natural-history apparatus. Any net used for collecting 
butterflies will do for Diptera ; but, on the whole, perhaps an ordinary 
umbrella-net will be found the most serviceable. One or two spare 
net-bags should be taken in case the one in use gets torn. 
Two dozen glass-bottomed cardboard pill-boxes (assorted sizes, up to 
2\ inches in diameter, packed in nests one inside another).* 
* These boxes can be obtained from Messrs. Watkins & Doncaster, 
36, Strand, London, W.C. ; but care should be taken to see that the bottoms — 
and not the tops, as is often the case — are made of glass. Since the boxes 
are constructed of cardboard, they are liable in tropical countries to go to 
pieces in the rains; and to prevent this they should be covered with jaconet 
in the following manner, the important point to remember being that the 
jaconet must be cut in strips on the cross: — Obtain, say, a square yard of the 
material, and fold it into a triangle by bringing two opposite corners together. 
Consider how wide the strips must be, according to the varying depths of the 
boxes to be covered, and rule them off in pencil by drawing lines parallel to the 
base of the triangle. Cut up the strips, or if possible get them cut by a book- 
binder's machine. Paint the box over with liquid glue, and wrap the jaconet 
round it : it is particularly important that the edges of the glass and lid should 
be well protected ; and it will be found that by gently pulling the jaconet it 
will wrap itself round these without difficulty. When quite dry, say the 
following day, the box should be given a coat of Aspinall's enamel, or of paint, 
60 
