Fig. 39.—A Wire Frame for a Butterfly Net.
Fig. 40.
The folding net is certainly very convenient, for you can conceal it in your pocket while you are walking through town or travelling in a railway carriage, and thus avoid that contemptuous gaze which certain of the public are prone to cast on a poor 'bug hunter.' And although such nets are generally purchased, yet they may be constructed by anyone who has had experience in the working of metals. But other forms of nets, equally useful and even stronger, can be made by anybody; and I will give a few hints on two or three different ways of putting them together.
A very simple and strong frame for a net may be made as follows: Get a piece of stout iron or brass wire about forty inches in length, and bend it into a circle with the two ends, turned out about two inches each, at right angles to the circumference as shown in the accompanying sketch.
Now take a good tough stick, the length of an ordinary walking
stick, and cut out two grooves opposite each other at the end, just large enough to take the straight ends of the wire. The end of the stick will now resemble fig. 40 in shape. Place the ends in their grooves, and bind them tightly to the stick by a good many turns of rather fine wire.
A frame well made after this fashion is as strong as anything you could desire, but it has the disadvantage of being always fixed to the handle, thus preventing the use of the latter as a walking stick when you are not directly engaged in your entomological work.
A much more convenient frame may be made by thrusting the ends of a piece of cane into the two narrow arms of a metal Y. You may purchase the Y at any of the naturalists' stores, or you can make one yourself if you know how to perform the operation of soldering. I have always made mine with odds and ends of brass tubing such as old gas pipes. One piece must be just the size to fix on the stick; and the other two must fit the cane tightly. The three pieces must be filed off at the proper angles, and the doubly bevelled end of the wider tube must then be flattened down to the width of the smaller ones before soldering. If you decide to buy one, give the preference to strong brass rather than the cheaper and more fragile ones made of tinned iron.