Sugaring for Moths 
have put into the bucket four pounds of cheap sugar. Now we 
will pour in a bottle of stale beer and a little rum. We have 
stirred the mixture well. In our pockets are our cyanide jars. 
Here are the dark lanterns. Before the darkness falls, while yet 
there is light enough to see our way along the path, we will pass 
from tree to tree and apply the brush charged with the sweet 
semi-intoxicating mixture to the trunks of the trees. 
The t2sk is accomplished! Forty trees and ten stumps have 
been baptized with sugar-sweetened beer. Let us wash our 
sticky fingers in the*brook and dry them with our handkerchiefs. 
Let us sit down on the grass beneath this tree and puff a good 
Havana. It is growing darker. The bats are circling overhead. 
A screech-owl is uttering a plaintive lament, perhaps mourning 
the absence of the moon, which to-night will not appear. The 
frogs are croaking in the pond. The fireflies soar upward and 
flash in sparkling multitudes where the grass grows rank near 
the water. 
Now let us light our lamps and put a drop or two of chloro¬ 
form into our cyanide jars, just enough to slightly dampen the 
paper which holds the lumps of cyanide in place. We will 
retrace our steps along the path and visit each moistened spot 
upon the tree-trunks. 
Here is the last tree which we sugared. There in the light 
of the lantern we see the shining drops of our mixture clinging 
to the mosses and slowly trickling downward toward the 
ground. Turn the light of the lantern full upon the spot, 
advancing cautiously, so as not to break the dry twigs under 
foot or rustle the leaves. Ha! Thus far nothing but the black 
ants which tenant the hollows of the gnarled old tree appear 
to have recognized the offering which we have made. But 
they are regaling themselves in swarms about the spot. Look 
at them! Scores of them, hundreds of them are congregat¬ 
ing about the place, and seem to be drinking with as much 
enjoyment as a company of Germans on a picnic in the 
wilds of Hoboken. 
Let us stealthily approach the next tree. It is a beech. 
What is there? Oho! my beauty! Just above the moistened 
patch upon the bark is a great Catocala . The gray upper wings 
are spread, revealing the lower wings gloriously banded with 
M7 
