The Collector's By-Product 



XIMENA MC GLASHAN 



Triickee, Cal. 



Present methods of collecting Lepidoptera conld be improved 

 jnst as the great packing lionses have improved the meat busi- 

 ness, by utilizing the by-product. Expressed differently, the 

 battered and unsalable female moths and liutterfies which the 

 collector throws away can be made to produce more perfect 

 s]iecimens than his entire catch. Of two females of a species 

 unknown to science, I i^refer one that is slightly damaged to 

 one which has just emerged from pupa. The latter counts one 

 perfect specimen, the former probably contains fertile eggs 

 and may produce hundreds of perfect specimens. 



Entomological works are strangely silent as to the utter 

 simplicity and untold value of propagating Lepidoptera. They 

 instruct the collector to use the net, search for eggs, larva^ and 

 pupae, sugar for moths, use traps and visit lights, beat bushes, 

 and all that, but fail to tell him that a battered female will 

 nearly always lay eggs if placed in a paper bag or box. 

 Edwards, Scudder and all the great authorities give minute 

 descriijtions of larval transformations, but fail to state that 

 collectors could indefinitely multiply their output by obtaining 

 eggs from each desirable variety by saving the usually dis- 

 carded females. Writers of Nature books tell of the great 

 ditficulty they had in finding eggs of certain varieties when all 

 they had to do to obtain them was to imprison a slightly worn 

 female. 



A female Catocnla has been known to oviposit foi;rteen hun- 

 dred fertile eggs. The resulting adults, if propagated and 

 equally prolific, would produce half a million eggs. Artificial 

 ]iropagation of fish yields such wonderful returns that it seems 

 incredil)le that no writer has advocated the same methods in 

 obtaining quantities of perfect butterflies and moths. My 

 father has been my teacher, and he learned under the direct 

 tuition of Harry Edwards and W. IT. Edwards, forty years 



