Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888Various
Science
Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888
Various
Science -- Periodicals
Provide yourself first with two tools, a net and a poison bottle. The
net may be made of any light material. I find the thinnest Swiss
muslin best. Get a piece of iron wire, not as heavy as telegraph wire,
bend it in a circle of about ten inches diameter, with the ends
projecting from the circle two or three inches; lash this net frame to
the end of a light stick four or five feet long. Sew the net on the
wire. The net must be a bag whose depth is not quite the length of
your arm--so deep that when you hold the wire in one hand you can
easily reach the bottom with the bottle (to be described) in the other
hand. Never touch wing of moth or butterfly with your fingers. The
colors are in the dusty down (as you call it), which comes off at a
touch. Get a glass bottle or vial, with large, open mouth, and cork
which you can easily put in and take out. The bottles in which
druggists usually get quinine are the most convenient. It should not
be so large that you cannot easily carry it in your pocket. Let the
druggist put in the bottle a half ounce of cyanide of potassium; on
this pour water to the depth of about three-fourths of an inch, and
then sprinkle in and mix gently and evenly enough plaster of Paris to
form a thick cream, which will _set_ in a cake in the bottom of the
vial. Let it stand open an hour to set and dry, then wipe out the
inside of the vial above the cake and keep it corked. This is the
regular entomological poison bottle, used everywhere. An insect put in
it dies quietly at once. It will last several months.
These two tools, the net and the poison bottle, are your catching and
killing instruments. You know where to look for butterflies. Moths are
vastly more numerous, and while equally beautiful, present more
varieties of beauty than butterflies. They can be found by daylight in
all kinds of weather, in the grass fields, in brush, in dark woods,
sometimes on flowers. Many spend the daytime spread out, others with
close shut wings on the trunks of trees in dark woods. The night moths
are more numerous and of great variety. They come around lamps, set
out on verandas in the night, in great numbers. A European fashion is
to spread on tree trunks a sirup made of brown sugar and rum, and
visit them once in a while at night with net and lantern. Catch your
moth in the net, take him out of it by cornering him with the open
mouth of your poison bottle, so that you secure him unrubbed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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