The Capture, Preparation, and Preservation of Specimens 
tries bananas, especially rotten bananas, seem to have a charm for 
insects. The cane-trash at sugar-mills is very attractive. If pos¬ 
sible, it is well to obtain a quantity of this trash and scatter it 
along forest paths. Some insects have very peculiar appetites and 
are attracted by things loathsome. The ordure of carnivorous 
animals seems to have a special charm for some of the most mag¬ 
nificently colored and the rarest of tropical butterflies. A friend of 
mine in Africa, who collected for me for a number of years, used 
to keep civet-cats, the ordure of which was collected and placed 
at appropriate points in the forest paths; and he was richly re¬ 
warded by obtaining many insects which were not obtained in 
any other way. Putrid fish have a charm for other species, and 
dead snakes, when rankly high, will attract still others. It may 
be observed that after the trees have been treated for a succession 
of days or nights with the sweetening mixture spoken of above, 
they become very productive 0 When collecting in Japan I 
made it a rule to return in the morning to the spots that I had 
sugared for moths the evening before, and I was always amply 
repaid by finding multitudes of butterflies and even a good many 
day-flying moths seated upon the mossy bark, feasting upon the 
remnants of the banquet I had provided the evening before. There 
is no sport—I do not except that of the angler—-which is more 
fascinating than the sport derived by an enthusiastic entomologist 
from the practice of “sugaring.” It is well, however, to know 
always where your path leads, and not to lay it out in the dusk, as 
the writer once did when staying at a well-known summer resort 
in Virginia. The path which he had chosen as the scene of 
operations was unfortunately laid, all unknown to himself, just 
in the rear of the poultry-house of a man who sold chickens to 
the hotel; and when he saw the dark lantern mysteriously moving 
about, he concluded that some one with designs upon his hens 
was hidden in the woods, and opened fire with a seven-shooter, 
thus coming very near to terminating abruptly the career of an 
ardent entomologist. 
Beating .—There are many species which are apparently not 
attracted by baits such as we have spoken of in the preceding 
paragraph. The collector, passing through the grove, searches 
diligently with his eye and captures what he can see, but does 
not fail also with the end of his net-handle to tap the trunks of 
trees and to shake the bushes, and as the insects fly out, to note 
33 
