Instructions as to the use of labels may be restricted to the simple advice to make them small enough to permit of their being placed upon the pins bearing the insects, and to have them written legibly. Of course every label should bear, if it is possible for the student to determine them, the generic and the specific names of the insects, and that of the author of the specific name, together with the date and locality of capture. In writing labels a small crow-quill pen is to be preferred.
A great many instruments of different sorts will suggest themselves to the collector in the process of his labors as being more or less useful, but none will prove more so than the forceps. It is impossible to do good work in the cabinet without a forceps, and those made by Blake, of Philadelphia, are the very best.
Books to be Consulted by the Collector for further Information as to Methods of Manipulating Specimens.
Packard: Guide to the Study of Insects. 8vo. Henry Holt & Co., New York.
Scudder: Butterflies. 8vo. Henry Holt & Co., New York. Kirby and Spence: Introduction to Entomology. Various editions.
McCook: American Spiders. Strecker: American Moths and Butterflies.
A great deal of practical and valuable information is to be derived from the pages of the following journals:
The Canadian Entomologist.