A naturalist’s work-room. 
235 
which I presume these Erehi[ stand, connecting the 
NoctucB with the Geometrce. 
Sometimes one of these large Moths is known to re- 
side in a certain hole in a rock, or a hollow tree, to 
which it resorts, with such uniformity, during its hours 
of repose, that it may almost with certainty be dis- 
lodged on any afternoon, by giving a smart rap on 
the outside, when out it rushes with such a startling 
suddenness, and with so irregular and zigzag a mo- 
tion, as often to defy capture, even though we are 
on the watch for it. 
A naturalist’s work-room. 
Let me describe a working naturalist’s laboratory. 
Suppose the time to be 2 p.m., after a morning’s 
excursion to the mountain. In the room are three 
large tables, one of them against the window, at 
which a negro youth is sitting. Before him lie half 
a dozen hirdsy one of which he is skinning ; beside 
him lie scissors, knives, nippers, forceps, a pepper- 
box of pounded chalk, a jar of arsenical soap, 
needles and thread, cotton-wool, and other apparatus, 
with several cones of paper ready to drop each skin 
into, when finished. Across the room are strung 
lines in various directions, from which are suspended 
some hundreds of similar paper cones, each tenanted 
by a bird-skin ; they are thus placed in order that they 
may dry out of the reach of rats, which nevertheless 
sometimes manage ingeniously to scramble along the 
slender lines and gnaw the feet and wing- tips of the 
specimens. On another table is a large bowl half 
