Excerpt from An Illustrated Natural History of British Butterflies and Moths

Once a worm, a thing that crept On the bare earth, then wrought a tomb and slept.

In this state of worm or caterpillar, Butterflies of many kinds are most easy to obtain: to my notion, an umbrella and. A walking-stick are the best implements. Spread the umbrella; turn it upside down; hold it under a shrub, a bunch of nettles, or the bough of a tree: thrash the foliage with your walking-stick, and caterpillars without number will fall into the umbrella: pick them up, put them. In tin boxes, and take them home. They will not all produce Butterflies; many of them moths but whether caterpillars of moths or Butterflies, they are all worth keeping. Caterpillars being mostly eaters of vegetable matter, there is no difficulty in providing and renewing the plants upon which they feed. A garden pot, half filled with loose, sandy earth, with a few pieces of cane bent over, and the ends inserted in the pot this frame covered with gauze, and a string passed over it below the mouth of the pot, forms a very good cage for caterpillars. A slip of the food-plant should be'first placed in a phial of water and put in the centre of the cage, which should be kept in a shady place. According to the size of the caterpillars, and ithe heat of the weather, the food will require to be renewed from time to time. These instructions are copied from the World of Insects, by J. W. Douglas, and others, more minute, elaborate, and complete, will be found in that excellent little book, The insect-hunter's Companion, by the Rev. Joseph Greene. I would most willingly quote pages from this last-named work, which is published by Mr. Van Voorst at 1s. 6d. But I imagine that every collector of insects must of necessity purchase the book itself, and it would be useless to possess the same information in two forms.

Treated in accordance with Mr. Greene's instructions, and carefully watched from time to time, the caterpillar will soon grow to its full size, will fix itself to the pot, the muslin, the leaves, or the twigs, and then turn to a chrysalis, and subsequently to a Butterfly, in the manner which I have fully described at page 14.

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