Cigar box with strip of corrugated paper in bottom used as case for keeping pinned insects.
Rearing and Observing Them While Alive
While studying an insect it is advisable wherever possible to first study it where it is found in the field and later bring it home and keep it alive in a jar where it can be fed and observed and its various habits studied. Cages for breeding insects consist simply of a few glass fruit cans and jelly glasses with tin or cloth covers. A child can borrow one or two of these from his mother's fruit cellar. A layer of moist sand or soil should be put in the bottom of the jar to provide a retreat for those forms which go into the ground before changing to adults. Before an insect is placed in one of these breeding cages its food plant should be determined by observations in the field, and every day or two a fresh supply should be gathered. Most of the forms discussed in the following chapters can be kept in jars and reared to the adult stage. Rearing insects is both interesting and instructive. Every child should be given an opportunity to rear a few forms either during the school year or during the summer vacation.
"I happened one night in my travels
To stray into Butterfly Vale,
Where my wondering eyes beheld butterflies
With wings that were wide as a sail.
They lived in such houses of grandeur,
Their days were successions of joys,
And the very last fad these butterflies had
Was making collections of boys.
"There were boys of all sizes and ages
Pinned up on their walls. When I said
'Twas a terrible sight to see boys in that plight,
I was answered: 'Oh, well they are dead.
We catch them alive, but we kill them,
With ether—a very nice way:
Just look at this fellow—his hair is so yellow,
And his eyes such a beautiful gray.
"'Then there is a droll little darky,
As black as the clay at our feet;
He sets off that blond that is pinned just beyond
In a way most artistic and neat.
And now let me show you the latest,—
A specimen really select,
A boy with a head that is carroty-red
And a face that is funnily specked.
"'We cannot decide where to place him;
Those spots bar him out of each class;
We think him a treasure to study at leisure
And analyze under a glass.'
I seemed to grow cold as I listened
To the words that these butterflies spoke;
With fear overcome, I was speechless and dumb,
And then with a start,—I awoke!"
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox.