risive laugh.

But experience will in time teach the fly-catcher the required adroitness
to avoid this humiliating defeat.

* * * * *

{49}

CHAPTER V.

HOW TO KILL A BUTTERFLY--AN APOLOGY--A TEST FOR LUNACY--CHARGE OF
CRUELTY AGAINST ENTOMOLOGISTS--THEIR JUSTIFICATION ATTEMPTED--PAINLESS
DEATH--CHLOROFORM--SETTING BUTTERFLIES--CABINETS AND STORE
BOXES--CLASSIFICATION--LATIN NAMES--SAVING TIME AND MONEY.

Having complied with the old adage, "First catch your hare," the next point
naturally is--how to cook it. So, having caught our butterfly, what are we
to do with him?--a question that generally resolves itself firstly into

HOW TO KILL A BUTTERFLY.

This truculent sentence may, I fear, look like a blot on the page to some
tender-hearted reader, and, in truth, this killing business is the one
shadow on the otherwise sunshiny picture, which we would all gladly leave
out, were it possible to preserve a butterfly's beauty alive; but this
cannot be done, and yet we have made up our minds to possess that
beauty--to collect butterflies, in short; there is but one way for it, and
so a butterfly's pleasure must be shortened for a few {50} days, to add to
our pleasure and instruction, perhaps for years after.

In the time of the great Ray, in such mean repute was the science of
entomology held, mainly, I believe, on account of the _small size_ of its
objects, that an action at law was brought to set aside the will of an
estimable woman, Lady Glanville, on the ground of _insanity_, the only
symptom of which that they could bring forward in evidence was her
_fondness for collecting insects_!

But this was some two centuries ago, and matters have greatly mended for
the entomologist since then. Now he may collect butterflies, or other
flies, as he pleases, without bringing down a commission "_de lunatico_" on
his _head_, but still the goodness of his _heart_ is sometimes called in
question, and he has to encounter the equally obnoxious charge of _cruelty_
to the objects of his admiration--that, too, from intelligent and worthy
friends, whose good opinion he would most unwillingly forfeit.

He, therefore, is naturally most anxious that those friends should be led
to share his own conviction, that the pursuit of entomology--the needful
butterfly killing and all included--may be not only not cruel, but actually
beneficent in theory and practice.

So I will briefly try to ac