14 
AN ADDRESS TO 
down the back. I have tried it with various kinds of food, 
and it will not eat; can you tell me what it is, and on what 
plant I should feed it ? Your invitation to those in search 
of information encourages me to trouble you with this 
inquiry. 
“ Believe me, dear Sir, 
i( Yours very truly, 
The reader will observe, that though addressing a perfect 
stranger, he commences u Dear Sir •” this is the etiquette 
amongst Naturalists; an Entomologist, writing to another 
for the first time, never thinks of beginning “ Sirthat 
would be considered very stiff and formal. 
The inquiries I have given are two, which I should have 
been very glad to have put when I was young to any more 
practised hand, as it was long before I obtained any speci¬ 
mens of Satarnia Carpini , and the first larva I found of 
Acronycta Aceris I found on some palings, and though I 
tried it with various kinds of food, I suppose I never offered 
it either horse-chestnut or sycamore, and it soon died of 
hunger. 
Insects are transmitted from one Entomologist to another 
o 
by the post; with larvae the matter is very simple, as all 
that is necessary is to place them in a small tin box, with 
some of the proper food, and wrap up the box in paper'and 
direct it; perfect insects, however, require to be handled 
with more caution—and in the first place they should be 
carefully pinned into a small, light, yet strong corked wooden 
box, and those which had large bodies should have them 
carefully pinned down by two or more pins going crossway s 
over the body; the box should then be carefully wrapped 
up in several thicknesses of cotton-wool, and then enclosed 
in paper; the object of the cotton-wool is to prevent any j* 11 
to the insects when the box is being stamped in the post- 
