Practical Taxidermy Part 31

Take now a strip of 1 in. deal, 15 in. long, and form it with a plough plane to the shape shown in Fig. 49. The part marked A will be 0.375 in. thick, the parts marked B B overhang 0.25 in, and rise from A to B B to the height which the thickness of your setting boards determine.

Divide this down the whole length with a cutting gauge where shown by the dotted lines; glue one of these halves to the side of one of the bottoms of the box, and from here measure off 5 in, which will be the size of your largest setting board for hawk moths. At this point glue down a whole strip, as shown in Fig. 49, which (supposing you have commenced from your left) clips the right-hand side of the first or 5 in. setting board, and the left-hand side of the second. Proceed in this manner until the bottom of the box is covered with setting boards, which will now slide in and out between the 0.375 in.

divisions. Turn the box round and do precisely the same with the other half.

As many more insects under, than above, 4 in. in expanse of wing will be captured, the most useful sizes for setting boards, as also the proper proportions of boards and divisions to fill up the bottom of each half of the box, are as follow:

First half.--0.25 in. strip, 5 in. board; 0.375 in. strip, 4 in.

board; 0.375 in. strip, 3.5 in. board; 0.375 in. strip, 3 in board; 0.375 in. strip, 2.5 in. board; 0.25 in. strip = 20 in. total.

Second half.--0.25 in. strip, 3.5 in. board; 0.375 in. strip, 3 in.

board; 0.375 in. strip, 2.5 in. board; 0.375 in. strip, 2.5 in. board; 0.375 in. strip, 2.25 in. board; 0.375 in. strip, 2 in. board; 0.375 in. strip, 1.5 in. board; 0.25 in. strip = 20 in. total.

Fig. 49--Section of division strips.

There are thus twelve setting boards 15 in. long, of the most useful sizes, contained in this box. The front is still as it was, open. The loose piece of wood, 20 in. by 4 in, must now be cut down the length, and each half must (making 20 in. by 2 in.) be hinged to the top and bottom of the box; a lock can then be fixed to bolt together the two halves, hooks also being fixed at each end of the box to further secure the front flaps. Fig. 50 shows the arrangement of the box at this stage--shut, but with the front flaps lifted up and down, showing the "sliding" setting boards snugly fixed within. Insects may by this method be left on the boards whilst travelling without the slightest risk, as nothing can come loose, and the pins of one side miss those of the other when the box is shut and locked.

Fig. 50--Front of setting-board box, with flaps open.

A more simple plan, serving equally as well perhaps, and having the advantage of dispensing with the intervening slips, therefore giving more s.p.a.ce for setting boards, is simply fixing a slip of wood at each inner end of the box, and another on each flap, so arranged as to hold all the setting boards down when shut. This is managed by allowing the wood of each setting board to protrude beyond its cork to the thickness of the slip--say half an inch. [Footnote: This box should be made in oak or mahogany; put together with bra.s.s screws, if for "foreign service."]

Insects, after removal from their "sets," require to be stored in glazed cases or cabinets for greater security and protection against evils previously glanced at. Some collectors content themselves with using for this purpose the ordinary store-box, made in the same manner as the collecting box, but of greater capacity. One 15 in. by 10 in.

by 4 in. deep will be found a useful size; this--opening in the same manner as a backgammon board--is corked with cabinet cork, each sheet of which is usually 11 in. by 3.5 in. or (double size) 12 in. by 7.5 in.

The cork being glued evenly over each half of the box, is rubbed down with pumice-stone, and afterwards with sand-paper, to get an even surface and reconcile the joints one with the other. It is then papered with white blotting-paper, toned, or black paper, pasted down over the cork with paste, in which has been previously stirred a little carbolic acid or corrosive sublimate (both poisons).

It has also been recommended to previously steep the cork, especially if for "foreign service," in a solution of:

Corrosive sublimate, 0.5 oz.

Camphor, 1 oz.

Spirits of wine, 1 pint.

Some little care is, of course, required in the handling of poisoned cork, etc, but I do not write expecting that infants will be allowed to handle the various lethal agents with which these chapters necessarily abound.

Another sort of store box is the book box, hinged at the back and opening along the front, representing two distinct volumes of a book.

This is either covered in cloth, labelled with gilt letters, or is made in mahogany, the bands let in in ebony, or white wood, and strips of lettered leather pasted in between them. [Footnote: see remarks on leather in chapter XII.] All around the box inside runs a little ledge of wood for the reception of gla.s.s, which, as each half is filled with insects, is pasted in with ornamental paper.

For those who delight in camphor, a piece of perforated cardboard or cork should be placed in the corners, forming angle pieces, and enclosing within the triangle thus formed, the (un)necessary morsels of the drug. When filled, it should be pasted over on the top, and the gla.s.s then fits close on top of it. Book boxes have one or two advantages: they look well in a library and take up but little room, and are easily handled when showing them to friends. As exhibition boxes they are nearly perfect.

CABINETS.--The entomological cabinet is a much more serious matter; there is no limit to its size, from the modest one of six drawers to the "working" one of thirty. The size of the drawers varies with individual taste. A nice size, however, is 18.5 in. long by 16.5 in.

by 2.5 in, or the 20 in. by 18 in. by 2.5 in, or deeper if for large insects.

No amateur, unless he is a past master at joinery, can hope to construct a thoroughly well-made cabinet; indeed, few cabinet makers know how to turn out one to suit a veteran entomologist. Briefly: the drawers of a first cla.s.s cabinet should be made of the best Spanish mahogany, or oak, in every part; no "baywood," "cedar," or any such spurious stuff should enter into its composition (good white pine being preferable to such). Cedar is totally unfit for store boxes or cabinets, owing to its tendency to throw out in time a gummy exudation, which settles on the wings of the insects and utterly ruins them. This remark applies also to cabinets for eggs.

The frames which hold the covering gla.s.s should preferably fit by a tongue resting in a groove, ploughed with a "filister" in the substance of the drawer itself. A fillet should rest inside, fitting against the inner edge of the frame, which should also be lined with velvet, to further exclude the dust. Drawer and frame should be made so true that the latter should fit back to front, if required, equally with its normal position. The carcase, or part into which the drawers fit, either by runners or in grooves by tongues attached to the drawers, should be made so truly that No. 1 drawer should fit in the place of Nos. 15 or 30, and vice versa, and all should "suck" back when pulled out half way. The drawers should be looked by "pilasters,"

or have glazed and framed doors.

There are but few makers of such cabinets as I have just described, and prices are proportionately high, a sovereign a drawer being about the figure. Fair cabinets in mahogany or walnut, quite good enough.

ordinary purposes, can be made, however, for half this sum, and deal ones a little less. The corking of these best cabinets is generally done before the bottoms are fixed, as thus an open surface is obtained for rubbing down, by leaving out the bottom until corked. White or black velvet, instead of paper, is often used to cover the cork.

Some little skill is requisite to do this without soiling the delicate material; the best way is, perhaps, to glue the cork on cardboard, cut to the size of the drawer, less the thickness of the velvet all round; on this glue the cork, rub it down as before directed, and strain the velvet over it, bringing its edges underneath the cardboard; glue the bottom of the cabinet drawer, and drop the prepared velvet-covered cork and cardboard into it, place clean paper over the velvet, and weight it down for a day or two. This plan ensures the cleanliness of your covering medium--a highly necessary precaution if using white velvet.

There are many other ways of fitting gla.s.s to drawers than that recommended. For instance, a hinged frame may be used, dropping in a "rabbet," ploughed around the front, back, and sides of the drawers; or the top frame may have a tongue fitting inside the whole substance of the drawer, or the gla.s.s may be a fixture, beaded or puttied in on top, the whole of the bottom uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g from the drawer frame. This latter is very well for a collection when fully made up and complete, but if required for an incomplete collection, the risk and annoyance of uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g and s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up, to constantly remove or insert a specimen, are great.

In view of the almost impossibility of keeping dust out of even the best-made cabinet drawers, if made on the top-lifting system, and also to do away with the screws, I have devised what I call the "dust-proof cabinet drawer." The gla.s.s is "beaded" and puttied in as a fixture on the top of the drawer, either from the inside or out. At the usual distance from the gla.s.s, to clear the pins, a strip is fixed all around the frame of the drawer. Below this, at a depth settled by the thickness of the bottom, a groove runs all around, except at the back, which is cut out up to the bottom edge of the groove. The bottom, when corked and papered, fits inside the frame, "b.u.t.ting" up to the strip which clips it all around to about the width of 0.25 in. A false bottom now slides in the groove below, and fastens with a catch, making all perfectly secure and altogether dust proof.

If well made, this drawer is easy to open, as, directly the false bottom is removed the inner one slips down and is found on the table when the upper part is lifted off. The only thing to be said against this drawer is that the fronts show a little deeper than usual to allow for the extra bottom.

A modification of this is a closely glazed cabinet drawer, with a false corked bottom, loosely held down by a slip affixed to each side of the drawer, and sliding out from the back; managed by hinging the back piece or fixing it by bra.s.s eyes and hooks. Note, that all loose flaps to drawers or door-frames, in best cabinet-work, should be worked and fitted by "Dust-joint" planes. This reduces risk and dust to a minimum.

PINS.--The pins used are those called entomological, and are made in various sizes to suit various insects. An insect should be pinned with one of these exactly in the centre of the back, running through truly to the underneath, slanting, however, a little downward toward the body, thus throwing the pin's head a little forward, but exactly in a line with the longest axis of the body. These are specially made by one or two firms only. Messrs. D. F. Tayler and Co, of Birmingham, issue a sample card, the most useful sizes of which are No. 11 (at 6d.

per oz.) for the hawk moths, No. 13 (at 6d. per oz.) for smaller moths and b.u.t.terflies, and No. 7 (at 2s. 6d. per oz.) for small moths, and such b.u.t.terflies as the "Blues." I have, of late, almost confined myself to No. 2 (at 2s. per oz.), a long fine pin, useful for many purposes (see chapter V).

There are many other sizes, but these will be found quite sufficient for the beginner. These pins are also gilt, under the impression that gilding tends to prevent the corrosion of verdigris which the juices from the bodies of some moths, the Hepialidae especially, induce. This is not so; the Continental black varnished pins are better safeguards, but prejudice forbids their use. Messrs. Tayler now make all their sizes in "enamelled black" to order, at the same prices as their gilded ones.

Varnishing the common entomological pins with a hard and nearly colourless varnish has been tried with good effect, though it is a trial of patience to do this to pins one by one. Really the only thing to stop grease appearing in the bodies of moths, to the subsequent breaking of your pins and soiling of your cabinet paper or velvet, is to open all the insects underneath, take out all their internal organs, carefully paint the inside with a little of the corrosive sublimate preparation (see Chapter IV), and fill up the void with cotton wool. Unfortunately the evil of greasy exudations from the bodies of unstuffed or low-set insects does not stop at the corrosion of the pins or greasing of the paper, but in many cases extends to the underlying cork, which is sometimes so badly greased as to necessitate the cutting out of the damaged patch to prevent the grease reappearing when the drawer is newly papered.

GREASE AND MITES.--"Grease" and "mites" are in fact the betes noires of the entomological collector. When you have an insect, therefore, old and greasy, but yet "too fondly dear" to throw in the fire, place the offender on a piece of cork weighted at the bottom with lead and sink it bodily in a wide-mouthed bottle, partly full of benzoline; leave it there from a day to a week, according to its state. When it comes out it will look even worse than before, but after being covered up with a layer of powdered chalk, magnesia, or plaster of Paris, it will often come out as good as new.

I say often, for cases occur now and then in which no amount of pains restores the insect to its pristine freshness; but these exceptions are few and far between. "Mitey" insects are cured in a similar manner; in fact, I would advise that all exchanges be submitted to the benzoline test. I have also used Waterton's solution (see chapter IV) to plunge them in, though 6 gr. of corrosive sublimate to the ounce of alcohol are about the proportions of the bath for most insects; but the spirit may be increased, if, on trial with a common insect or black feather, it should be found that the mercury is deposited as a white stain on the evaporation of the spirit.

Rectified aether (pure) is a better medium than alcohol for rapidity of drying (especially in a draught), but is more expensive. Nothing, I believe, prevents mites (psocidae) appearing now and then even in poisoned insects. Constant care, stuffed bodies, and soaking in benzoline, are the deterrent agents; camphor is a pleasant fiction, so is wool soaked in creosote, phenic acid, cajeput oil, crystals of napthelin, etc.--in fact, it may be laid down as an indisputable doctrine that no atmospheric poison is of the slightest avail against mites. [Footnote: See remarks on this in chapter IV.] Get them to eat poison, or drown them and shrivel them up in spirit and you may settle them, but not otherwise.

I have heard of cabinet drawers suffered to remain upside down to prevent mites getting to the insects; but I very much fear that such a plan as this, is on all fours with that of a man whom I knew, who, being abroad in a "Norfolk-Howard" infested country, turned the head of his bed every other night to puzzle the enemy!

The late Mr. Doubleday, the father of English entomology, never admitted camphor in his cabinet (thinking, as I do, that it conduces to grease), but used the corrosive sublimate preparation instead, to touch the underneath of the bodies of doubtful strangers. Loose quicksilver or insect powder is by some strewn amongst their insects; but the danger of the first to the pins, and the untidy appearance of the second, militate against their general use. [Footnote: It is quite true that, although camphor evaporates rapidly, and settles on anything, so as to be perceptible even to the naked eye, yet that it re-evaporates and ultimately disappears. This, to my mind, is the most fatal objection to its use: its ready evaporation leaving the insects etc, ultimately without any protection.]

HAUNTS.--Having given a brief outline of the capture, setting and storing of an ordinary insect, I will, in as few words as possible, give a short history of any peculiarities attending the capture of extraordinary insects.

Some b.u.t.terflies and moths (the autumnal appearing species) live through all the winter hid up in hollow trees, outhouses, etc.

appearing at the first rays of the spring sun to lay their eggs and die. Others pa.s.s through the frost and snow as pupae, bursting their cerements in the sunshine, to live their brief life and perpetuate their race; others eke out a half dormant existence as minute larvae, others pa.s.s the winter in the egg state. In fact, each species has its idiosyncrasy. [Footnote: Here, perhaps, I may explode that myth and "enormous gooseberry" of the mild winter or early spring, headed in the newspaper every year as "Extraordinary Mildness of the Season": "We are credibly informed that, owing to the mildness of the past week, Mr. William Smith, of Dulltown, Blankshire, captured a splendid specimen of a b.u.t.terfly, which a scientific gentleman to whom it was sent p.r.o.nounced to be the small tortoisesh.e.l.l Vanessa, etc." Now the fact is, that Urticae merely came out for an airing, awakened from its winter sleep by the extraordinary warmth of the day, and it might just as likely have been "shook up" on the preceding Guy Faux or Christmas-day; all the Vanessidae, and many others, being hybernators.

Far different, however, is it when any of the "Whites"--Pieridae--are seen or caught. They indeed do herald the coming spring, as, lying in the chrysalis state throughout the autumn and following winter, some degree of continuous warmth must take place 'ere they can emerge.]

The swallow-tail b.u.t.terfly, first on some British lists, must be sought for in the fens of Norfolk, and Cambridgeshire, and Northamptonshire. It is a strong flyer, and requires running down, unless when settled on the head of one of the various umbelliferous plants it delights in. The clouded yellow is usually a lover of the sea-coast during the months of August and September--though in that year of strange climatic changes (1877) it appeared in considerable numbers from the beginning of June, whether hybernated, or an early brood evolved from pupae lying dormant throughout the last summer, is an open question.

The Purple Emperor, now one of our rarest insects (I have not seen it alive since the time when I was a boy, and saw it around the oaks of Darenth Wood), was formerly captured by the aid of a net fixed to a pole 30 ft. or 40 ft. long. But accident or science discovered, however, that this wearer of Imperial purple possessed a very degraded taste, descending, in fact, from the tops of the highest oaks to sip the juices from any decaying or excremental matter. Now, therefore, the recognised bait is a dead dog or cat in a severe state of "highness." The "gamekeeper's museum" in the few places where Iris now resorts may be searched with advantage, yielding also a plentiful supply of beetles of various sorts. The "Holly Blue" I have noticed to have a similar degraded taste.

Mud holes also in hot weather attract many b.u.t.terflies, as do the sweet exudations from various trees, or from fallen or over-ripe fruit.

Occasionally a high-flying insect may be induced to follow to the ground a stone or piece of turf thrown up in front of it. The persistent manner in which some species will return again and again to the very same spot is something wonderful. The same flower head, the same muddy puddle or patch of road, is selected. The collector, if foiled in his first attempt, will do well, therefore, to wait for the probable return of his prize. Certain species frequent the chalk district only, others woods and sandy lanes; some are found only high up in the mountains of the north, others but in the low-lying valleys of the south.

The sea coast has its specialities, some insects even flying well out to seaward, in crossing from land to land. I remember a "crimson-speckled footman" moth, Deiopeia pulch.e.l.la, flying on board a steamship whilst we were fully a hundred miles from the nearest land.

No place, in fact, should be disregarded in which to search for insects, for some are so exceedingly local that a district of perhaps twenty miles in extent may be searched in vain for a desired species, until the collector suddenly comes upon one or two fields swarming with them.

Nor is this all, for in the case of two or three extremely local species, but one or two spots in the British Isles are their favoured haunts. Bean fields in flower, clover and lucerne fields in sunshine, are first-cla.s.s hunting grounds, whilst on cloudy or very windy days many b.u.t.terflies, such as the Blues, may be found resting on gra.s.ses or on tree trunks in woods; or, as in the case of the Hairstreaks, higher up under the leaves. Beating the boughs with a long stick will often force insects to fly, when their presence is unknown to us.

I have hitherto spoken of the collecting of insects by day only, but as there are many insects--moths--which appear but at night, we must follow them to their haunts, prepared with lantern and net. In the dusk of the evening, just as the sun sets and twilight comes on, we must take our stand near the flowers frequented by certain moths. In spring the blue bell, cherry, and apple blossom may be watched.