Kill it without spoiling; cut off the body close to the wings, which contrive to spread in a flying position; then take a piece of white paper, wash part of it with thick gum-water; when dry, lay it on a smooth board, with the wings on the gum-water; lay another paper over this, press both very hard, let them remain under pressure for an hour; afterwards take off the wings of the butterfly, and you will find a perfect impression of them, with all their various colours, remaining on the paper. Draw, between the wings of the impression, the body of the butterfly, and colour it after life.
To take the Impression of a Leaf of any Tree, Plant, or Shrub, with all its Veins.
Having put the intended leaf into a book for a few minutes, which will cause it to lie very flat, you must have a pair of balls, somewhat of the shape of those used by printers; have them covered with kid-skin, that being the best leather for the purpose. These balls may be made to any size. You must then procure some lamp-black, ground or mixed with drying oil, and having put a small quantity on one of the balls, spread it all over with the other till they are both black; then laying the leaf on one of them, place the other over it, and press both very hard together. When the leaf is sufficiently black, take it off the ball, and place it between a sheet of white paper. Press it gently with your hand, the heat and pressure of which will cause it to receive an accurate delineation of all its veins.
Instead of black, any other colour may be used. Verdigris makes a pleasant green; and by adding yellow ochre, or Prussian blue, you may approach the original tint of the leaf, and your impression will almost equal that of nature.
Curious Experiments respecting Colours.
The following curious and useful remarks on the different degrees of heat imbibed from the sun’s rays, &c. by cloths of different colours, were extracted from “Experiments and Observations,” by that famous American philosopher and politician, Dr. B. Franklin.
“First, let me mention an experiment you may easily make yourself. Walk but a quarter of an hour in your garden when the sun shines, with a part of your dress white, and a part black; then apply your hand to them alternately, and you will find a very great difference in their warmth. The black will be quite hot to the touch, the white still cool.
“Another. Try to fire paper with a burning-glass. If it be white, you will not easily burn it; but if you bring the focus to a black spot, or upon letters written or printed, the paper will immediately be on fire under the letters.
“Thus fullers and dyers find that black cloths, of equal thickness with white ones, and hung out equally wet, dry in the sun much sooner than the white, being more readily heated by the sun’s rays. It is the same before a fire; the heat of which sooner penetrates black stockings than white ones, and is apt sooner to burn a man’s shins. Also beer much sooner warms in a black mug set before the fire, than in a white one, or in a bright silver tankard.
“My experiment was this: I took a number of little square pieces of broad cloth from a tailor’s pattern-card, of various colours. There were black, deep blue, lighter blue, green, purple, red, yellow, white, and other colours, or shades of colours. I laid them all out upon the snow in a bright sunshiny morning. In a few hours, (I cannot now be exact as to the time,) the black being warmed most by the sun, was sunk so low as to be below the stroke of the sun’s rays; the dark blue almost as low, the lighter blue not quite so low as the dark, the other colours less as they were lighter; and the quite white remained on the surface of the snow, not having entered it at all.