"_Does he who searches Nature's secrets scruple
To stick a pin into an insect?_"

--A. G. OEHLENSCHLAEGER.

In the life of every normal human there comes a time when he wishes to
make a collection of some kind. It may be a collection of coins, postage
stamps, post-cards, shells, relics, birds' eggs, pressed flowers or
insects. If the child grows up in the country, the result of this
craving is usually three or four cigar boxes of insects or an almanac or
geography stuffed with the most attractive wild flowers of the field. A
collection of this sort may be small and poorly kept and yet it is worth
while. In later life one will search in his mother's closet or attic
for the old cigar boxes which contain the remains of youthful efforts,
usually a mass of gaudy wings, fragments of insect legs and bodies and a
few rusty pins. This desire to make a collection is natural and should
be encouraged in the child. It tends to make him observe closely and
creates an interest in things about him, and if properly directed it
will add a store of information which can be gotten in no other way.

_Directions for Collecting_

Many boys and girls of the rural schools will have little time or
inclination to provide themselves with apparatus for collecting insects.
An old straw hat or a limb will serve their purpose. From their point of
view what difference does it make if they tear off most of the legs and
break the wings? They succeed in securing the "bug" and when pinned in
the box it will mean just about as much to them as the most perfect
specimen ever prepared.

[Illustration: A convenient home-made net for catching insects; note the
broom-stick handle, heavy twisted wire and mosquito net bag.]

This method of catching insects will prove effective where nothing
better is available, but any child can easily make a small insect net by
attaching a loop of fairly stiff wire to a broom handle or other stick
and sewing a bag of mosquito netting or other thin cloth to the wire. By
means of such a net one can catch insects more easily and at the same
time there is less danger of tearing such insects as butterflies. Care
must be taken in handling the stinging insects.

[Illustration: A cyanide jar for killing insects; note the lumps of the
deadly poison potassium cyanide in the bottom covered and sealed by a
layer of plaster of Paris.]

The country boy and girl will have little troubl