TAXIDERMY AND ZOOLOGICAL COLLECTING. 



finds in the globes in the morning 1 , half -buried in the dust of 

 the disintegrated carbons, is of little or no value. Various 

 traps lighted with lanterns have been suggested, but so far 

 few of them have equalled the simple device of a friend of 

 mine, who, living 1 in a tropical country, has set apart a small 

 room for this purpose, and having 1 cleared it of all furniture, 

 and whitewashed the walls, keeps a powerful lamp burning in 

 it every night opposite a large window facing the forest. His 

 captures vary from a dozen to a hundred specimens of lepi- 

 doptera every night of the year, and multitudes of insects of 

 other orders. In the temperate zones a favorite method of col- 

 lecting lepidoptera is by " sugaring." For this a mixture of 

 sugar and stale beer, or molasses and water, flavored with rum, 

 and of about the consistency of thin maple syrup, should be 

 used. It is best applied to the trunks of trees upon the edge 

 of clearings, and on' moonlight nights on the side of the wood 

 toward the moon. Apply the mixture to from forty to eighty 

 trees, stumps, or stakes, with a whitewash brush, and then go 

 over the " beat " with a dark lantern and capture the moths in 

 the wide-mouthed cyanide jar. In this way the writer has 

 taken as many as three or four hundred moths in a single even- 

 ing. The same trees should be sugared and visited night after 

 night, and the best results are often only obtained after a beat 

 has been in operation for some time and the insects have 

 learned to know it. The best catch is generally to be had in 

 the two hours immediately following sunset. In tropical coun- 

 tries, aside from the Erebidse and allied moths, few species 

 appear to be attracted to sugar, and in warm climates plenty of 

 rum should be added to the mixture. To keep ants off from 

 trees which have been sugared, the writer finds it good to tie a 

 band of dark cloth which has been treated with a saturated so- 

 lution of corrosive sublimate about the trunk near the ground. 

 This only is to be done where a regular route has been selected 

 for nightly visitation, and it has the disadvantage of keeping 

 away from the baits many beetles which are attracted to sugar. 

 Trees which have been sugared and visited at night should be 

 revisited in the daytime, and many day-flying species will be 

 found feasting upon what has been left by the revellers who 

 attended the banquet of the night before. 



