178 INSTRUCTIONS FOR COLLECTING INSECTS. 



more distinctly, when tTiey may be captured with the net. But this 

 expedient is very far inferior to sugaring. 



Many specimens can be taken with but little trouble by placing a 

 light within a room on the ground floor before a closed window, par- 

 ticularly one facing a garden or the open country. The moths will 

 flutter on the outside before the light, or alight on the panes of glass, 

 when they can be easily secured in pill boxes, killed and pinned as 

 they are caught. Moonlight nights are unfavorable to the use of light. 



Those who live in towns lighted by gas will be able to secure many 

 specimens around the lamps; or by making friends with the lamplighter 

 and supplying him with pill boxes, he may furnish you every morning 

 with many S2)ecimens and sometimes rarities. In using the light for 

 making captures, care should be taken to guard against the moth 

 singeing its antennae or wings in the flame. 



The males of the Bombyces chiefly may be taken by exposing the 

 virgin females with crumpled wings on trees, or enclosed in cages, 

 exposed in the open country. 



I would earnestly recommend every collector to note the date of 

 capture of all his Lepidoptera on a little square of paper, and pass the 

 pin transfixing the insect through it. It is simply necessary to indi- 

 cate the month by its initial letter and to give the day in figures. By 

 following this plan, which will indicate approximately the earliest and 

 latest periods of their appearance, and the numbers of broods during the 

 season, he will be able to tell at any time when to look for the species 

 he may desire, and to form a calendar showing the periods of appear- 

 ance of species, and will enable one to make accurate comparisons in 

 this respect between widely separated geographical areas. Many 

 species of our lepidopterous insects are spread over immense areas, 

 and some of them appear to be common to the entire continent, and a 

 calendar of this kind, when once formed, would show the successive pul- 

 sations of lepidopterous life, (as it advances along the broad sun-track 

 from the genial regions of the Gulf to our northern boundaries, and 

 throbs over the great western plains to the Eocky mountains.) 



HOW TO KILL LEPIDOPTERA. 



Insects should be killed with at least some manifestation of humanity, 

 so as not to engender a spirit of cruelty in the minds of the young who 

 may witness the operation, and it should be accomplished, at the same 

 time, with poisons or agents that can be trusted in the hands of the 

 young and those inexperienced in their effects. A great variety of 

 agents have been recommended for this purpose, and it would be quite 

 unnecessary to allude to all of them. 



Chlorofobm is exceedingly useful to the collector, in consequence of 

 the rapidity of its efl'ects. It is objectionable, however, inasmuch 

 if its influence is carried too far it causes rigid contraction of the 

 thoracic muscles, which throws the wings into positions that renders 

 setting them subsequently almost impossible. Moths should there- 

 fore merely be benumbed by it. A few seconds is sufiicient generally 

 to produce this effect, and the influence of the agent intermitted for 

 the purpose of pinning the insect. When this has been done, if it is 



