COLLECTING INSECTS
The two principal reasons for making insect collections are first, to study, second, to sell. The beginner's outfit will be the same whichever reason is his. Time was when any one carrying an insect net was looked on with a sort of pitying suspicion. He or she was thought to be the victim of a mild form of lunacy, which might or might not take violent shape. All that is past now that insect study has grown so important and popular. It is quite safe to conclude that the hundreds of trained scientists employed by the government to investigate the problems involving insect life all started their studies by making a collection.
Probably the easiest kind of collection to make is one of plants. Once you see them, their fate is sealed. Escape is impossible. But collecting wild plants about your own door yard and in the woods is tame work compared to insect capturing. Your eye marks a butterfly or a dragon fly for your own, but you have him yet to reckon with and his wings may carry him far beyond your reach.
The outfit necessary to an insect collector is simple and inexpensive. For general collecting, and that is the best for a beginner, you need:
1. A net.
2. A killing bottle.
3. Insect pins.
4. Insect boxes.
While you can add to your collection almost every day in the year when once "you have the fever," the best time to begin is summer. More insects are in evidence then, and their active flight, their beautiful colours, and wonderful variety of form all help arouse the interest. As the collection grows you will find that many insects can be captured without a net, but as you will want every new butterfly, moth, dragon fly, and grasshopper that comes into your line of vision you must certainly have a net the first thing.
The materials needed for a net are these:
1. A smooth, light, but strong handle about three feet in length. (An old broom handle will answer.)
2. A strip of tin, four inches wide, and long enough to fit around the handle. (Why not use a piece of a tin can if you have strong shears?)
3. Three and a half feet of heavy wire. (No. 3 galvanized is the thing.)
4. A piece of cheese cloth, three fourths of a yard. (Get a good grade to stand a season's wear.)
Almost every boy knows a tinsmith and when it comes to putting these materials together, the services of a skilled workman are very valuable. If pocket money is scarce, there are any number of jobs a boy can do for the tinsmith in exchange for his help in making the net. That piece of wire is to form the ring which holds the cheese cloth bag; the ring must be fastened securely into the end of the handle. Bend the wire into a circle a foot in diameter, then bend back three inches of both ends and force them into the end of the handle, a hole for the purpose first having been made by burning or boring. Bend the tin round the handle at the net end to keep it from splitting when in use, and tack it on tight.
Insect net
If you know how to sew you are more fortunate than most of the boys I know, although why should not a boy learn to use a sewing machine? The bag ought to be sewed on the machine. You must first lay the finished edge or selvedge around the wire to make sure that it goes around and has a little extra for the seam. Pin the cloth together where it meets around the wire, then lay it on a table, double. Cut the bag, rounding the bottom neatly. Cheese cloth is the worst stuff to ravel, and if you sew the bag with a single seam you will soon be sorry. Pin the cloth so that the two edges are exactly together and sew a seam about a quarter of an inch wide all the way round. Now turn the bag inside out and fold it so that the seam you just made will be right on the edge. Sew another seam, three eighths of an inch deep this time. The ragged edge of the goods will now be inside of this second seam and can not fray out and make a nuisance of itself. If all this is worse than Dutch to you, take the bag to your sister. She is not so much cleverer than you but the chances are that if you ask her to sew you a French seam, she will make it just as I have described. Sew the finished bag onto the wire with heavy double thread and your net is ready for use.
Materials to make a killing bottle: 1. A wide-mouthed bottle. (I advise every collector to have two bottles, one to carry in the pocket all the time, the other for special trips for large things. For the first a small olive oil bottle, a test tube, or any convenient sized bottle with a mouth nearly or quite as large as the body of the bottle. A fruit jar, pint size, does well for the very large things.)
2. A cork which fits the bottle tightly, and is an inch long. A cork any shorter than this is an aggravation as it is so unhandy.
3. A lump of cyanide of potassium as big as a hickory nut for the small bottle, two or a little more for the big bottle. Yes, cyanide is a deadly poison, and the druggist will not sell it to you and your father will not let you buy it. But if you convince your mother that she can trust you to use a cyanide bottle as it is intended to be used, her objections will melt away. Just as likely as not she and your father, too, and your teacher, and maybe the druggist all made insect collections when they were your age and one or the other will make your cyanide bottles for you following these directions:
4. A teacup full of plaster of Paris.
Killing bottle
Handle the cyanide with a couple of sticks or drop the lumps from the paper into the bottles so as not to touch them with your fingers, mix a little of the plaster of Paris and water till it is like a thin paste and pour enough in on the lumps of cyanide to entirely cover them. Put in on top of this all the dry plaster of Paris the water will take up. Let the bottle stand open for an hour or so, then wipe it out with a rag, which may be burned afterward. Put in the cork and your killing bottle is ready to do its share toward making a collection for you. Don't forget to label your bottles "poison," and always be careful not to inhale the fumes. The smell of the breath of the bottle will be enough to remind you.
It was a Japanese student, who, when he found one of his pinned moths had come to life and beaten its wings to pieces in the box, said: "It ought-a be dead. He in cy'ni' bot'l' a' night." I should not wish to be quite so stoical. His bot'l' was probably an old one, which did its work too slowly.