3. Collecting equipment, including an aspirator, camel's-hair brush,
forceps, vials, and killing bottle.
Material such as leaf mold is placed in the sieve and this is shaken
over the white oilcloth, which has been spread on a level spot on the
ground. The small insects fall on the cloth and can be picked up with
the aspirator or the camel's-hair brush. Many insects feign death when
they fall to the oilcloth and they are difficult to detect in the bits
of sifted material until they "revive" and start to move.
In late fall and winter, sifting provides one of the most profitable
types of collecting; in any season, it will turn up such things as rare
spiders and beetles. Sifting is most successful for finding large,
active insects. For small, slow-moving forms, Berlese funnels offer a
better collecting method.