[CATCHING BUTTERFLIES.]
BY HELEN S. CONANT.
The boy or girl who wishes to form a valuable and pretty collection of butterflies must set about it in the right way. The first thing is to prepare a net. The brass rings with handles sold by all dealers in sportsmen's goods for landing-nets for fish will answer the purpose, but any ingenious boy can make his own frame. Get a smooth, light hoop about fifteen inches in diameter. If you can not find one small enough, make it from a barrel hoop. Bind the hoop firmly to a rod about three feet long. Now go to mamma and ask her to cut out a round piece of mosquito netting about three-quarters of a yard in diameter, and fasten it to the hoop. Now the net is ready.
The permanent case for your specimens must be a neat shallow box of some pretty wood, with a glass cover. Thin pieces of cork should be glued on the bottom at intervals, according to the size of your butterflies, upon these the insects are mounted by a slender pin which runs through the body. When the case is full, it should be sealed air-tight, for if there is the finest crack, moths will get in and ruin your collection.
You can not take your case to the fields, so you must have some small paper boxes in which you can mount your specimens until the wings are dry, and they are ready to place in the case.
The best thing for a youthful naturalist to use to kill the butterfly is ether. As it evaporates very quickly, it does not injure the color or texture of the beautiful insect, and it ends the life of the butterfly instantly, and without giving pain. There are other things often used by naturalists, such as cyanide of potassium, but they are dangerous chemicals for little folks to handle, and we recommend ether as being safe, and sure to kill the butterfly.
Now swing your net over your shoulder, take the ether which should be in a bottle with a glass stopper to prevent evaporation, the box for mounting specimens, and some fine pins, and let us start out in search of butterflies. We will go first for some of the large ones that fly about the fields and by the road-side.
Down in the old lane by the stone wall is a great clump of milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), and in June there were some big black, white, and yellow caterpillars crawling about among the leaves. Two weeks ago they changed into green chrysalides spotted with black and gold, and it is time now to look for the great Danias archippus butterflies, which will come out of the chrysalides in these hot July days. Yes, there is one now perched on the Asclepias, its large wings opening and shutting in the sun. Go softly, for it is a shy fellow. A quick throw of the net, and—off goes the butterfly sailing away across the sunny field. Hurry over the wall and give chase after it. The boy who would intrap a butterfly must follow where it leads, and stop neither for walls, ditches, nor swamps, or the prize will be lost. There are few butterflies so strong on the wing as the Archippus. But it is worn out at last, and stops to rest for an instant on a field lily—a fatal instant for the butterfly, for now the net descends skillfully, and the great insect is fluttering in its meshes. Gather the net carefully in your hand so that the creature will have no room to flutter and break its wings. Now pour a very little ether on its head—two drops are enough—and it lies motionless. As the Archippus is a very strong fellow—you have already, perhaps, felt the tight grip of its tiny feet on your finger—it may be necessary to repeat the dose of ether, but for ordinary butterflies one dose is sufficient.