The Library of Work and Play: Outdoor WorkMiller, Mary Rogers
Philosophy
The Library of Work and Play: Outdoor Work
Miller, Mary Rogers
Agriculture -- Juvenile literature
Your first box full will be a varied assortment. When you have all you
can conveniently pin into three boxes without crowding, you will want
to arrange them. If you have begun to study science you will know what
"classify" means. Every school is made up of classes. So with insects.
You will know by the looks of the insects that certain ones belong
together. A good way to start is to put all the butterflies and moths
into one box. You may not know what you have done, but you have simply
separated the members of the order _Lepidoptera_ from all the others.
Look over those that are left and you will see that some, like the
blundering June bug, have their wings so placed that a straight line
appears down the middle of the back. These belong together, regardless
of their colour, size, shape, habits, or other considerations. They
belong to the order _Coleoptera_. Grasshoppers, katydids, and crickets
belong to another group and can be pinned together. All the flies have
two wings, and belong in a group apart from all the four-winged ones.
The dragon flies go together. You will have representatives of other
orders, less easy to distinguish, but by the time your collection has
grown to this extent you will be ready for some beginner's book on
entomology, which will make further classification simple enough. As
you shift your specimens from one box to another observe a certain
regularity of arrangement. The heads should all point in one direction.
When pinning a group all of which are about one size, set the pins all
in line, in military fashion. How much better they look! This neat,
formal arrangement of the specimens adds greatly to your satisfaction
and enjoyment of your collection. Avoid crowding and breakage. A dried
specimen is almost everlasting, but at the same time it is the most
fragile thing you can imagine.
As your collection grows in size, value, and interest, you will
certainly want wooden cases. Perhaps your manual training teacher will
be willing to let you build a box under his direction. A cabinet-maker
can make them at one dollar or less, apiece, of well-seasoned basswood.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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