S-1141001_COMPLETO.pdf

APHORISM ATA ENTOMOLOGICA. 9
for the purpose in the following manner:—The glass B having had its
foot broken off, is cemented to a box-wood handle, A. Opposite to A a
slot is made about an inch in length, and wide enough to let the wire
frame, presently mentioned, traverse it freely.
A wire frame, A, D, C, E, is formed, following the outline of the
glass and handle, and bearing at the rectangular end c a disc of card­
board, blackened. This disc, which is rather larger in diameter than
the mouth of the glass, is attached to the straight part of the wire by
a sort of continuous staple, formed by glueing over it a strip of paper.
The disc therefore is moveable about the line c as an axis, whilst the
part of the wire moveable in the slot A enables one readily to remove
the disc from the mouth of the glass, as in Fig. 3; or, when the glass
has been placed 0A*er the captive, to close it as in Fig. 4.
If the capture was intended to be retained, the closed glass was
removed to a small stand, beneath a hole in which was a bottle con­
taining the very strongest ammonia, or other more effectual vapour
destructive of life.
The thin cardboard disc being now slipped aside, the insect was
exposed to the vapour. In a short time all consciousness having been
destroyed, it seemed the safer plan to make sure of the extinction of
life.
You will perceive that by this system the insect was never touched
by the fingers, and its perfection Avas unimpaired."
"IN EXTENSO."
IF one ever thinks at all about the various facts with which we are
necessarily conversant in every-day life, it can hardly fail to occur to
the mind, that not only the origin of many of the most useful of the
"appliances and means" with which we are even the most familiar, is
lost in the mists of antiquity, but that the very names of the discoverers
and inventors of the most useful and beneficial sciences and arts are
for ever buried in oblivion, if indeed it Avas at any time their lot to rise
from the obscurity which too often shrouds the most meritorious and
deserving benefactors of the human race.
Who then was the inventor of the mode of setting insects that I
am about to mention and explain, I am utterly unable to say, and
perhaps no one may now know. Possibly the "ephemeral" nature of
the subject may have been thought to have imparted a derived un-