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PRESERVATION OF INSECTS.


To remove the verdigris which forms upon the pins, the pinned insects
should be immersed in benzine and left there for a time; several hours is
generally long enough. The administration of this bath cannot be too
highly recommended for beetles which have been rendered unrecognizable by
grease, especially when dust has been mixed with the grease. This
immersion, of variable duration according to circumstances, will restore
to these insects, however bad they have become, all their brilliancy and
all their first freshness, and the efflorescences of cupric oxide will
not reappear. This preventive and curative method is also readily
applicable to beetles glued upon paper which have become greasy; plunge
them into benzine in the same way, and as the gum is insoluble in the
liquid, they remain fastened to their supports. Pruinose beetles, which
are few in number, are the only ones that benzine can alter; the others,
which are glabrous, pubescent, or scaly, can only gain by the process,
and they will always make a good show in the collection.--_A. Dubois in
Feuille des jeunes naturatistes_, March, 1885, p. 71.--_Psyche_.

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