Three Hundred Games & Pastimes - complete online book

A Book Of Suggestions For Children's Games And Employments.

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	What Shall We Do Now?              167 setting boards for use at home. The good collector is very careful in transferring the butterfly from the net to the bottle, lest its wings are rubbed or broken ; and before taking it out of the bottle and putting it in the box you should be quite certain that it is dead. The way to get the butterfly into the bottle is to drive it into a corner of the net and hold it there, and then slip the bottle inside, remove the stopper, and shake the butterfly into it. The stopper should be off as short a time as possible. For handbooks for a butterfly collector see the " Reading " section. A quieter pastime, but a very interesting one, and also one that, unlike egg-collecting and butterfly-collecting, goes on all the year round, is collecting flowers. For this purpose tin cases are made, with straps to hold them from the shoulders, in which to keep the plants cool and fresh ; but there is no need to wait for the possession of one of these. An ordinary box or basket will, if you have not very far to walk, serve equally well. You will also need a press, which can be simply a couple of boards about a foot long and six inches wide, with a good supply of blotting-paper between. The flowers are pressed by spreading them very carefully, to show their beauty to best advantage, between the blotting-paper, and then piling a few books on the boards. The weight need not be very heavy and the blotting-paper should frequently be renewed. You will soon learn how long the pressing need continue, but it is of the highest import­ance that the flowers are thoroughly dried before you mount them in your album or on separate sheets of paper. The simplest form of mounting is to gum little strips of paper here and there across the stems. A botanical collection is more valuable if the roots of the plants are also included ; and this will make it necessary for you to have a long trowel. For the collector of flowers a handbook is compulsory. Flowers of the Field, by C, A. Johns, is good. It is interesting, if you have any skill in painting, to make	Collecting flowers.