Fig. 47 — Section of "Setting Board"
Fig. 47 shows a section of a "setting board" designed to remedy this evil. The block A is formed of a piece of 0.75 in. deal, 12 in. to 14 in. long, and of varying widths according to the insects required to be set. Exactly in the centre a groove is "ploughed" to the depth of 0.5 in.; from the outer edges of this groove B the board should be "pitched" or "bevelled" 0.125 in. on each side to its outer edge. On top of each half, a piece of 0.125 in. cabinet cork C C is glued, and also in the groove B, where shown at C.
Presuming that you have a "Red Admiral" to set with l.125 in. or a No. 13 pin, you will find, if allowing 0.125 in. for the body, that after setting an insect in a board of this kind the matter will be pretty evenly adjusted — that is to say, about 0.5 in. of pin above and below the butterfly. This allows the insect when placed in the cabinet to be well clear of the paper, and is the mode now generally adopted by those entomologists who effect a compromise between the ridiculous English low setting and the Continental "high-set." What the real objections are to this latter setting it has always puzzled me to discover, unless it is the true British objection to anything foreign or "French."
In a foreign Camberwell Beauty (Vanessa Antiopa) which I have just measured, the relative proportions are as follow: The whole length of the pin is 1.5 in., it comes through the body on the underside 0.875 in., whilst above the body it shows but a little more than 0.25 in. Its advantages are manifest. First, it brings the insects much nearer the eye when placed in the cabinet. Secondly, by its position the body is prevented from greasing the paper of the cabinet (a not unimportant item when the reader is told that the white velvet of a newly-lined cabinet drawer has been utterly ruined by the grease from the bodies of low-set insects). Thirdly, the almost total immunity from "mites" which high-set insects enjoy.
This last consideration ought to induce our entomologists to adopt the Continental set nem. con. For what entomologist dare tell me that he has no mites in his cabinet? Is it the user of camphor, of creosote, of phenic acid, or of corrosive sublimate? Why, then, this foolish prejudice against the high-set? I have tried both plans, low setting for fifteen, and high setting for ten years. I have, as an experiment, mixed high-set insects in with low-set "exchanges." The brown dust underneath the latter tells their tale too well. In a box of foreign high-set insects which I have had by themselves for four or five years little or no trace of the destroyer is to be seen.
Reform your "setting boards," then, say I; plough your grooves deeper, and if you object to the flat appearance of the foreign set insects, there is no earthly reason why you should not "pitch" your boards to the angle I show in Fig. 47, or to any other angle you desire. The objection to this "high-set" lies in a nutshell: it looks "odd" to one accustomed to the English method, and that is really all to be advanced against its general use.
Let me, therefore, ask my brother entomologists to give the "high-set" a fair trial, and not to be deterred by the sneers of any novice. It may strengthen my pleading and terminate the hesitation of the young entomologist if I mention here that the officer in charge of the collection of lepidoptera in the British Museum — the well-known authority, A. G. Butler, F.L.S., etc.. — is not only setting all newly-received butterflies and moths in precisely the fashion advocated above, but is actually re-setting all the old "low-set" insects in the same manner!
Whilst on the subject of foreign insects I should like to impress upon the young beginner not too greedily to rush after "real British" specimens of rarities, or he may find that he has purchased, at the expense of some pounds, perhaps, a reset continental type worth as many pence. I fancy I see our would-be entomologist shaking his head and very sagely saying, "Oh no! I intend to collect all my insects myself." My young friend, let me tell you that you will have to collect far beyond the prescribed threescore years and ten if you would yourself collect all the British lepidoptera. Work, therefore, in collecting as hard as you can, and when you want a rarity to fill up a void in your cabinet, go at once to some respectable dealer and ask for a continental type of the insect you want, place it in your cabinet, label it "Foreign," and when you can replace it with an undoubted "Britisher" think yourself lucky.
Fig. 48 — Butterfly "braced" on board.