_The Sieve._--This useful aid to good collecting has not been generally employed by American entomologists. It facilitates the finding of small insects living under old leaves, in moss, in decayed trees, in fungi, in ants' nests, or in the ground. Any ordinary sieve about a foot in diameter and with meshes of about one-fifth of an inch will answer, though for durability and convenience of carriage one made of two wire or brass rings and muslin (Fig. 54), as follows, is the best. The ends of the wire netting should be bent around the ring so as not to project. A piece of common muslin about 1 foot wide and long enough to go around the circumference of one of the rings is then sewed together so as to form a kind of cylinder or bag without bottom, and the upper and lower rims of this bag are then sewed on around the two rings. The whole instrument thus forms a bag, the top of which is kept open by the simple wire ring, and the bottom is closed by the second ring covered with the wire netting. After choosing a suitable locality a white cloth is spread as evenly as possible on the ground; the collector then takes the sieve, places therein two or three handfuls of the material to be sifted, returns to his cloth, and, holding with his right hand the lower ring and with the left hand the upper ring, shakes the sieve over the cloth. The larger particles and specimens are retained in the sieve while the smaller fall through the meshes on to the cloth. Care must be taken that the siftings form an even and thin layer on the surface of the cloth, so as to be easily examined from time to time. If the locality is favorable many insects will be seen at the first glance crawling or running about, and these can easily be picked up by means of a moistened brush, or with the forceps. Many other insects, however, either feign death or, at any rate, do not move until after the lapse of several minutes, and the proper investigation of a single sifting often requires much time, and patience will be more fully rewarded here than in any other mode of collecting. [Illustration: FIG. 54.--The sieve. _a_, wire netting (original).] The size of the wire meshes given above is best adapted for sifting the fragments of old decayed trees, which furnish the most frequent material for the use of the sieve, but for sifting ants' nests, soil, etc., a sieve with smaller meshes is desirable. The sieve is indispensable to the Coleopterist, the Arachnologist, and to the specialist in the smaller Hemiptera and Hymenoptera, but it is also useful for most other orders, many interesting species existing which can be secured in numbers only by this mode of collecting. Many Tineidae and even Noctuidae hide under old leaves, but the specimens are usually rubbed and rendered useless in the process of sifting. Many larvae and pupae can, however, thus be obtained.