N0MADA. 
253 
tion to their prettiness of colour and elegance of form, 
they have a further attraction in the agreeable odours 
they emit, sometimes of a balmy or balsamical, and 
sometimes of a mixed character, and often as sweet as 
the pot-pourri, and occasionally pleasantly pungent. A 
fine string of specimens of the several species is a great 
ornament to a collection, but to secure this in its per¬ 
fection some care is required in the mode of killing 
them. Their colours are best permanently retained by 
suffocating them with sulphur, which fixes the reds and 
yellows in all their natural and living purity. My 
method was in my collecting excursions to convey with 
me a large store of pill-boxes of various sizes, and as 
I captured insects in my green gauze bag-net, I trans¬ 
ferred them separately to these boxes. When home 
again I lifted the lids slightly on one side and placed as 
many as would readily go beneath a tumbler, and then 
fumigated them with the sulphur. This is a better 
plan than killing them with crushed laurel-leaves, for it 
leaves the limbs much longer flexible for the purposes 
of setting, whereas the laurel has a tendency to make 
them rigid, and this rigidity is extremely difficult to 
relax, whereas the setting of those killed with sulphur, 
if they are kept in a cool place, may be deferred for a 
few days, until leisure intervene to permit it, and even 
then if they become stiffened they are readily relaxed 
for the purpose. 
A division might very consistently be established in 
the genus by the separation of those which have sub- 
clavate antennse, and the segments of whose abdomen 
are slightly constricted; these also are more essentially 
midsummer insects, and usually frequent the Ragwort. 
This is the only genus of parasites amongst the true 
