or a three-cornered instrument similar to, but smaller
than, the scraper used by shipwrights; anything, in fact, handy to
carry, and efficacious in scratching up the sod at the roots of trees,
or tearing off the pseudo-knots of bark which veil the pupae of
various moths.

When larvae or pupae are brought home, it will be necessary to place
them in something which, though retaining them in captivity, yet
allows them as natural conditions of living as is possible in a
circumscribed space. Pupae, may be kept in a flower pot covered with
earth, or in moss damped from time to time with water of not too cold
a temperature. Over the flower pot may be strained two pieces of wire
or cane, crossing each other in the form of arches, the whole covered
with muslin; or a handier plan to get to the insects quickly when
emerged, or to damp the pupae, is to procure from the glass merchant
the waste cylinders of glass cut from shades, pasting over one end
with "leno" or muslin, and placing the other in the flower pot on top
of the earth or moss.

This also makes a cheap substitute for the breeding cage for larvae,
if a little earth only is put in the flower pot in which a bottle of
water is placed containing the food plant. Wire gauze cylinders are
handy as affording plenty of air to delicate larvae. Bandboxes with a
square piece cut out from the top lid, the hole thus made covered with
muslin, will do very well for breeding a quantity of a hardy common
sort.

Fig. 57--Insect breeding cage

The usual wooden breeding cage is shown at Fig. 57. This requires
hardly any explanation: A is a glass door, B B B are sides and top of
perforated zinc, C is a tray fitting inside, where dotted lines are
shown, to hold the earth in which the bottle of water holding food is
placed, or where the larvae bury themselves to change to pupae.
Properly, the inner tray of box C should be constructed of zinc
perforated with a few holes at the bottom, in order that it may be
lifted out to allow the pupae to be well damped when "forcing."
[Footnote: For those larvae of butterflies and moths which do not
require earth, it will be sufficient to have a zinc pan, with covered
top perforated with holes, in which the stalks of the food plants be
inserted in the water which fills the pan, whose covering prevents the
insects from drowning themselves therein.]

"Forcing" is a method adopted to cause any moth to emerge at the
collector's will, and several months bef