ave also used Waterton's solution (see chapter IV)
to plunge them in, though 6 gr. of corrosive sublimate to the ounce of
alcohol are about the proportions of the bath for most insects; but
the spirit may be increased, if, on trial with a common insect or
black feather, it should be found that the mercury is deposited as a
white stain on the evaporation of the spirit.

Rectified aether (pure) is a better medium than alcohol for rapidity
of drying (especially in a draught), but is more expensive. Nothing, I
believe, prevents mites (psocidae) appearing now and then even in
poisoned insects. Constant care, stuffed bodies, and soaking in
benzoline, are the deterrent agents; camphor is a pleasant fiction, so
is wool soaked in creosote, phenic acid, cajeput oil, crystals of
napthelin, etc.--in fact, it may be laid down as an indisputable
doctrine that no atmospheric poison is of the slightest avail against
mites. [Footnote: See remarks on this in chapter IV.] Get them to eat
poison, or drown them and shrivel them up in spirit and you may settle
them, but not otherwise.

I have heard of cabinet drawers suffered to remain upside down to
prevent mites getting to the insects; but I very much fear that such a
plan as this, is on all fours with that of a man whom I knew, who,
being abroad in a "Norfolk-Howard" infested country, turned the head
of his bed every other night to puzzle the enemy!

The late Mr. Doubleday, the father of English entomology, never
admitted camphor in his cabinet (thinking, as I do, that it conduces
to grease), but used the corrosive sublimate preparation instead, to
touch the underneath of the bodies of doubtful strangers. Loose
quicksilver or insect powder is by some strewn amongst their insects;
but the danger of the first to the pins, and the untidy appearance of
the second, militate against their general use. [Footnote: It is quite
true that, although camphor evaporates rapidly, and settles on
anything, so as to be perceptible even to the naked eye, yet that it
re-evaporates and ultimately disappears. This, to my mind, is the most
fatal objection to its use: its ready evaporation leaving the insects
etc, ultimately without any protection.]

HAUNTS.--Having given a brief outline of the capture, setting and
storing of an ordinary insect, I will, in as few words as possible,
give a short history of any peculiarities attending the capture of
extraordinary insects.

Some butterflies and moths (the aut