_Examination, &c._--The means of catching insects will readily occur to the reader. A bag-net made of a curved piece of cane, to which is fitted a bag made of net, will serve to catch those which trust to flight for escape from their enemies, such as the Lepidoptera; and these may be killed by firm pressure of the thorax between the finger and the thumb. The running insects, as the beetles, may be caught in a spoon or with forceps; and they may be killed by immersion in boiling water or in camphorated spirit. In an excursion, most insects may be carried in a well-corked bottle containing a little wool and a lump of camphor, which stupifies them. When the insects are dead, the limbs should be extended into the natural position by means of pins, the insect being transfixed by a pin run through the thorax or one of the elytra and extending into a sheet of cork. To preserve them, they may be kept in a box, the bottom of which is covered with sheet cork, into which the pins are stuck. The smaller beetles, &c., which cannot be transfixed with a pin, may be mounted as opake objects upon slips of card, the legs &c., being carefully spread out, and gummed in position with a strong solution of gum-tragacanth in boiling water. Many of the smaller Curculion´idæ or diamond-beetles, in which the labium forms a rostrum or beak, with elbowed or half-bent antennæ, form beautiful opake objects when thus mounted, on account of the brilliant scales with which they are covered. There are two ways of examining insects--either in the entire state as opake objects or the separate parts mounted as transparent objects. In the former case the pin with which the insect is transfixed should be stuck into a slide made of cork, and this laid upon the stage, or the pin may be held by the forceps. In this way, with the use of the side condenser and a low power, the general form and arrangement of the parts of the insect can be made out. The more minute details must be searched for in the individual organs which have been picked off with forceps, and mounted in balsam. If it be required to submit the parts of a dried insect to examination, this must be previously soaked in warm water for a time, as the legs, &c., become very brittle when dry, and are thus easily injured.