First and foremost comes the net. This essential portion of your equipment may be either purchased or constructed by yourself. Very little skill is required to enable you to do the former. Provided your pocket is well charged, you may start off at once to the dealer in naturalists' appliances, and treat yourself to a complete outfit. But even in this case a little advice may not be out of place. See that what you purchase is very _strongly_ made. You can get nicely finished nets constructed on the most convenient principles, made to fold and go in an ordinary coat pocket, but with _weak joints_. See that you have the most convenient form of net by all means, but do not go in for convenience and appearance at the expense of strength and durability. Nothing is more annoying than to find your net give way just when you are in the midst of a good day's sport. [Illustration: FIG. 39.--A WIRE FRAME FOR A BUTTERFLY NET.] [Illustration: FIG. 40.] The folding net is certainly very convenient, for you can conceal it in your pocket while you are walking through town or travelling in a railway carriage, and thus avoid that contemptuous gaze which certain of the public are prone to cast on a poor 'bug hunter.' And although such nets are generally purchased, yet they _may_ be constructed by anyone who has had experience in the working of metals. But other forms of nets, equally useful and even stronger, can be made by anybody; and I will give a few hints on two or three different ways of putting them together. A very simple and strong frame for a net may be made as follows: Get a piece of stout iron or brass wire about forty inches in length, and bend it into a circle with the two ends, turned out about two inches each, at right angles to the circumference as shown in the accompanying sketch. Now take a good tough stick, the length of an ordinary walking stick, and cut out two grooves opposite each other at the end, just large enough to take the straight ends of the wire. The end of the stick will now resemble fig. 40 in shape. Place the ends in their grooves, and bind them tightly to the stick by a good many turns of rather fine wire. A frame well made after this fashion is as strong as anything you could desire, but it has the disadvantage of being always fixed to the handle, thus preventing the use of the latter as a walking stick when you are not directly engaged in your entomological work.