NATURAL HISTOKY. 
97 
after drying them, to store the specimens in air-tight corked boxes. It is 
only thus that good museum specimens can be obtained, and the colours 
and fine hairy clothing with which many species are furnished preserved. 
But on a journey of exploration this is quite impracticable, and all 
travellers, including professional natural history collectors, now adopt 
more summary and compact methods; laying all the hard-bodied tribes 
in prepared sawdust, and folding all the delicate-winged species in small 
triangular paper envelopes. The former class should be collected in broad¬ 
mouthed bottles, containing a minute piece of cyanide of potassium, or in 
insect “ killing bottles/’ as described in the foot-note at p. 84, it being 
necessary to kill them speedily, to prevent their mutilating each other and 
destroying their value as specimens. On reaching camp the contents should 
be shaken out (into boiling water if not already killed), and then placed in 
boxes, between layers of large-grained, or sifted and well-dried, sawdust. 
The under side of the lid of the box should be moistened with carbolic 
acid, which will prevent the attacks of insects or moisture, and the sawdust 
also sprinkled, but so as not to touch the specimens, the colours of which 
would be tarnished by the acid. When the box is filled the lid may be lightly 
nailed down, and it is then ready for transmission home. In collecting 
ants, it is necessary to open nests at the time of swarming, and to secure 
the winged individuals, as well as the wingless workers of various sizes, 
of each species, the whole set being kept together and duly labelled. To 
facilitate this, the set may be lightly gummed on cardboard before placing 
them in sawdust. The more delicate-winged insects, such as butterflies, 
moths, dragon-flies, &c., should be killed by pressing the breast under¬ 
neath the wings with thumb and forefinger (taking great care not to 
injure the wings), and then dropping them with closed wings each into 
its paper envelope (a supply of which is to be taken on every excursion) ; 
on reaching camp the envelopes, thus filled each with its specimen, 
should be packed, without pressing them too tightly, in boxes. Spiders 
and Crustacea, land and fresh-water, may be collected in bottles con¬ 
taining spirit, where they may remain; but spirits should not be used 
for any other class of insects, except in the case of specimens intended 
for dissection of the internal parts, as alcohol distorts the forms and 
destroys the colours and pubescence. 
Mountain travellers will have many opportunities of obtaining valuable 
specimens of insects, but they cannot be expected to carry the usual 
VOL. II. H 
