One of the things you'll learn at Stonehenge (if you take the audio tour anyway) is there used to be - before the whole conservation thing got going - a decent sideline available to local blacksmiths in renting out hammers for people to chip off souvenirs from the sarsons. This rather destructive appreciation for the monument seems a peculiar trait of the Victorians, for it reminded me of an old book that my father had when I was a kid, which he'd got from my Grandfather. The book was a boy's guide to be a naturalist - and the first chapter was how to make your killing jar.

A killing jar's purpose was to kill insects. It was generally made from a glass jar, with a plaster of paris block at the bottom which had been soaked in a poison that evaporated into the rest of the jar, killing anything placed in there without damage to it. After you'd killed whatever it was, you were then supposed to mount it on cardboard for display.

Further chapters in the book had instructions for cleaning skeletons (especially skulls; ants are apparently good for the last bits of flesh) and blowing eggs (again for display).

It's almost macabre how much death was expected of the amateur naturalist of the time - it's almost like they didn't think there was an end to things.