KN'roMOI.Om AT UAINIIAM. KSSKX. 283 



latod spirit (instead of rum), and a flavouring of oil of aniseed or essence 

 of jargonelle pears (amylic acetate). T have tried the addition of poppy- 

 heads and chloral hydrate to the mixture, hoping more effectually to 

 stupefy the insects, but without much success, though I fancied that the 

 poppy heads did quiet them a little ; at any rate, this much is certain, 

 that these latter additions do not drive the moths away. 



A brother collector tells me that he once tried adding gin, and that 

 he did not repeat the experiment, because he found that the insects fell 

 from the trees and lay stupefied upon their backs on the ground before 

 he could get round the first time ! 



I am certainly under the impression that change and variety in the 

 way of scents and flavours prove an advantage, and that I have noticed 

 2)articular moths to frequent particular mixtures. This seems to me to 

 be reasonable, because natural scents and flavours are various, and no 

 doubt some prove more attractive than others. Yet I would most care- 

 fully guard mj'self against seeming to imply that I think that insects 

 have the same idea of scents or stinks that we have. Apatura ins is said 

 to like offal — I don't. My only serious attempt to capture his majesty, 

 with a drowned pig and a rotten rabbit, certainly drove him away, if 

 he was in the neighbourhood at all, and I don't blame him either. 

 The French are said to " sugar " ! with rotten decomposed soap-suds, 

 and the largest catch of insects I ever saw, was made with a mixture of 

 sugar and urine. And besides this, three years' residence in Rainham 

 has tai;ght me that if insects appreciated sweetness as much as we do, 

 they would have used their advantage over men by flying a\vay as fast 

 as jjossible, and that collecting in the neighbourhood and for miles 

 round Avould be perfectly useless. 



I never consult temperature, wind or moon, agreeing with a cor- 

 resjjondent that all dei)ends upon the temper of the moths. Sometimes 

 they won't come, sometimes they will, and 1 have found that, given the 

 sugar, it does not much matter what the other conditions may be. The 

 onl}' condition Avhich stops me is, when heavy rain, running down the 

 tree trunks, washes the sugar off, and this difficulty 1 have partly over- 

 come, by nailing pieces of board on to the trees, so placed that the 

 running water does not pass over the sugar. 



I must now pass on to my experience in the past season. My diar^', 

 which has been posted up with more or less regularity for a good manj^ 

 years, and which contains entries as far liack as 1870, tells me that uji 

 to the end of May few things were about. During June, matters 

 improved slightly, though the species taken were of the commonest, 

 and the specimens few and far between. 



On the last day of June (a Saturday, J remember, because being out 

 of rum, I felt that it was not quite the thing for me to go either in 

 jierson, or by deput^^, into a public-house bar, on that particular evening) 

 I first added methylated spirit to the mixture, and from that date fortune 

 smiled upon me once more. AVhether the novelty of the scent (a trace 

 of paraffin oil), or a change in the weather, or a general agreement 

 amongst the moths that strikes ivere played ord led to this happy change 

 I do not know ; all I do know is, that with the use of methylated spirit 

 my luck turned, and I had no longer to write in my diary *' nothing at 

 sugar." 



It is unnecessary to say more al»out methods of collecting, therefore 

 I will content myself with mentioning, seriatim, those amongst \ny 



