266 PRESERVATION OF INSECTS. 
preventing this evil, I have used rather extensively 
and believe it to be a very effectual, and generally an 
innocuous preservative ; but as this gentleman has not 
given us the exact proportions of his mixture, it may 
not be useless to observe, that if one part of corrosive 
sublimate be dissolved in eight parts of good spirit of 
wine, and the under side of the insect touched with a 
camel’s-hair pencil, dipped in the liquor, so as to let it 
lightly pervade every part of the creature, which it 
readily does, it will, I apprehend, prevent any future 
injury from insects. A larger portion of the sublimate 
will leave an unsightly whiteness upon the creature 
when the specimen becomes dry. The under side of 
the board, on which the insects are fixed, should be 
warmed a little by the fire after the application, that 
the superfluous moisture may fly off, before finally 
closing the case. If this be omitted, the inner surface 
of the glass will sometimes become partially obscured 
by the fume arising from the mixture. The experienced 
entomologist needs not a notice like this ; but the 
young collector probably will not regard it as unneces- 
sary information, and may be spared by it from both 
mortification and regret. I have known insects com- 
mence their serious operations before the collections 
of the summer could be arranged in their permanent 
cases. 
In noticing above, that this solution is generally 
harmless, it is requisite that mention should be made 
of the few instances in which it has been observed to 
be injurious. I have applied it to many specimens of 
foreign and British insects, and commonly observed no 
indication of its having been used, when the creatures 
had become dry. But to confine our attentions to Eng- 
lish specimens, when the solution is made stronger than 
recommended, it will, after a time, injure the fine yellow 
of the sulphur butterfly (papilio rhamni), by turning 
parts of it brown and dirty ; but even in its reduced 
state it has a manifest effect upon the colors of two of 
our moths, the Dartford emerald (phalsena lucidata), and 
what is commonly called the green housewife moth 
(phalaena vernaria) changing their plumage, in several 
