SUGARING FOR MOTHS 
The day has been hot and sultry. The sun has set behind 
great banks of clouds which are piling up on the northwestern 
horizon. Now that the light is beginning to fade, the great 
masses of cumulus, which are slowly gathering and rising higher 
toward the zenith, are lit up by pale flashes of sheet-lightning. 
As yet the storm is too far off to permit us to hear the boom of 
the thunder, but about ten or eleven o’clock to-night we shall 
probably experience all the splendor of a dashing thunder¬ 
shower. 
Along the fringe of woodland which skirts the back pastures 
is a path which we long have known. Here stand long ranks 
of ancient beeches; sugar maples, which in fall are glorious in 
robes of yellow and scarlet; ash trees, the tall gray trunks of 
which carry skyward huge masses of light pinnated foliage; 
walnuts and butternuts, oaks, and tulip-poplars. On either side 
of the path in luxuriant profusion are saplings, sprung from the 
monarchs of the forest, young elm trees planted by the winds, 
broad-leaved papaws, round-topped hawthorns, viburnums, 
spreading dogwoods, and here and there in moist places clumps 
of willows. Where the path runs down by the creek, 
sycamores spread their gaunt white branches toward the sky, 
and drink moisture from the shallow reaches of the stream, in 
which duckweed, arrowy-weed, and sweet pond-lilies bloom. 
The woodland is the haunt of many a joyous thing, which 
frequents the glades and hovers over the flowers. To-night the 
lightning in the air, the suggestion of a coming storm which 
lurks in the atmosphere, will send a thrill through all the swarms, 
which have been hidden through the day on moss-grown trunks, 
or among the leaves, and they will rise, as the dusk gathers, in 
troops about the pathway. It is just the night upon which to 
take a collecting trip, resorting to the well-known method 01 
“sugaring.” 
Here we have a bucket and a clean whitewash brush. We 
146 
