38 
THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
my own part, however, I prefer to place 
a little tartaric acid in a small saucer 
below, into which I pour a very few drops 
of a strong solution of cyanide of potas- 
sium ; effervescence with evolution of 
prussic acid tabes place immediately, and 
the impregnated atmosphere proves fatal 
alike to moths, bees or beetles ; indeed I 
find a drop or two among the bruised 
laurel-leaves a great comfort on a field 
day among the Coleoptera, some of which 
are so determined in their attempts to 
escape from the bottle. 
W. D. Ckotch. 
Uphill Home , Weston-super-Mare ; 
April 18 , 1859 . 
[Cyanide of potassium, being a deadly 
poison, is a dangerous thing to recom- 
mend for general adoption, more espe- 
cially by young collectors.] 
NEPTICULA ANOMALELLA. 
To the Editor of the ' Intelligencer.’ 
Sir, — I am probably the first of my 
family that ever addressed himself to one 
of the race of monsters to which you 
belong, and I should not now venture to 
do so if I were not out of your reach, 
and that, by the peculiar circumstances 
of my position I have become aware that 
you take an interest in the proceedings 
of creatures, who, though they may ap- 
pear little when measured by your stan- 
dard, you cannot deny have a lustrous 
character and a pedigree older than any 
your genealogies can show. I am aware 
also that, although that old fellow Goeze 
wrote about our ways and manners 
long ago, and thought them interesting, 
scarcely any one else of you deemed 
them worthy of notice until recently, if 
indeed the record of that author were not 
altogether ignored > even your Kirby and 
Spence did not seem to know much about 
some tracks made by our family. And 
you yourself, although for many years my 
progenitors have taken leave to work on 
the rose tree by your window, right under 
your nose, knew nothing about them until 
the other day. Pray do not think I am 
now going to tell you any of the family 
secrets ; if the question tvere put to the 
inhabitants of the burrow I am sure the 
chairman of the meeting would have to 
say, “ The Noes have it.” 
I flew in at your window one day, and 
know all that takes place in that den of 
yours; but you cannot tell what went on 
in my house, except that when I was in 
my minority I was a miner, and did not 
waste my time like some of your kind of 
miuors. What, I should like to learn, do 
you know of the relationship of my family, 
or, in my own case, of the way in which 
I came into the world, how my education 
was conducted and by whom, how it was 
I never broke out of bounds, how many 
suits of clothes I had and what became 
of the old ones, and how I obtained my 
present gorgeous array, to which nothing 
about your race may compare, and which 
may scarcely be looked at, much less 
touched by, any of your kind. Except 
that I ate and grew, you know nothing 
about me or the mysteries of my inner 
life, and I would not have cared to tell 
you so, only you have presumed to write 
what you call my “ history,” which is, 
begging your pardon, only a mere out- 
line sketch. I saw those long rows of 
lifeless bodies in your museum, and 
trembled to think what might have been 
my fate, but I was thankful I was not in 
your power to be skewered and fixed. 
I saw your books, too, full of dreadful 
caricatures of the glorious forms of my 
family ; but for these I forgive you, for 
you cannot tell how coarse they appeared 
to my superior vision, short-sighted as 
you may deem it. I found you did not 
even know my proper name, — that is, 
the name 1 bear at home; how 1 was 
