Page:The American Boy's Handy Book edition 1.djvu/278

are very likely to lose their colors if placed in spirits, and if pinned and dried like beetles they will not only lose all color, but their bodies will shrivel up and change in form and proportion to such a degree as to make the specimens next to worthless. Mr. Ralph Hemingray, of Covington, Ky., sent the author some spider bottles manufactured under his direction of very thick, Image missingFig. 160.The Hemingray Bottle. clear, white glass, three inches high by one and one-quarter inch broad, and threequarters of an inch thick. These bottles are convenient in shape, and when a spider is put in one and the bottle filled with glycerine, the spider looks as if it might be imbedded in a solid block of crystal.

I have had some brightly colored garden spiders preserved in this manner for two years, and they have not only retained their original shape but color also. In the place of corks, pieces of elastic are stretched over the tops of the bottles; this allows the glycerine to expand or contract. Fig. 160 represents a drawing of one of these bottles with a spider in it. A case of specimens preserved in this manner makes not only an interesting cabinet, but a very pretty one. Although many persons have a horror of spiders, they lose all their nervousness when the insects are seen neatly labelled and enclosed in pretty glass bottles.

Many really beautiful, as well as some absurdly comical designs can be made of properly preserved insects by ingenious lads.

Butterflies may be made to have the appearance of hovering in mid-air by mounting them upon extremely fine wire.