236 THE OPEN BOOK OF NATURE 
one shilling ; it is a perfect mine of information and 
practical suggestions. 
Breeding-cages can be purchased, but I am sure 
my readers would rather save their pennies by 
making such as they need for themselves. If you 
arrive home from a ramble with some larve you 
intend to rear, and have no cage ready for them, you 
can get a flower-pot, the hole in the bottom of 
which can be stopped with a cork, or anything that 
will plug it satisfactorily. The larve should be 
placed with their food in the upright pot, and the 
mouth of the pot be covered with muslin secured 
with string. The food-plant will keep fresher if its 
stem is inserted in a juicy potato. In emergencies 
of this kind common sense will always suggest a 
practical way out of a difficulty. Failing a flower- 
pot a big pickle-jar might serve, or a hat-box covered 
with muslin. | 
... Probably you will desire a cage that permits more 
ready observations than can be secured in a flower- 
pot, jar, or hat-box. In that case you can easily 
make a cage that will suit your purpose, as well as 
one that you might pay several shillings for. 
Plate 62, b, represents a small cage I knocked together 
in an hour one day, when I needed a residence for a 
caterpillar I had secured, and one that admitted of 
easy observation, and gave me the opportunity to 
photograph my captive. This little larvarium is 
about eight inches wide by nine inches high and 
five deep. Four uprights of wood are let into a 
baseboard of one-inch stuff and held firmly at the 
top by a piece of half-inch stuff. The sides are of 
perforated zinc ; the back and front are glass. The 
