1892.] 305 



It is not well to sit down too readily and say sugaring is a failure. 

 East and north-east winds are bad as every one knows, but if the wind 

 is in any other quarter 1 trouble not about seeming bad times, for if 

 moths will not come to sweets in one place they often will in another. 

 I do not mean to say there are no bad times when the wind is away 

 from the east, for there are times when the weather seems perfect and 

 yet insects ignore sugar in an unaccountable manuer. 1 do think, 

 however, that these times are not so often as many suppose. We 

 have a good all round sugaring place about three miles from this. I 

 go there to sugar, say for Noctua rhomhoidea when it is well due ; if 

 none or only few moths come after a fair trial, I do not waste time 

 there, but go off further afield to another and another likely place, 

 and pretty often find the right one. Then comes the conclusion : there 

 were no broods of any consequence feeding in the old spot this year, 

 but plenty in the new one, for, in my experience, moths will not come 

 very far to the sugar, save only occasional stray ones. Again, if I 

 find that the species I am after does not turn up well anywhere after 

 a fair try round, I give that up as a failure for the year and just go 

 off after something else. This autumn, for instance, I w^anted Xan- 

 thia gihagOj so went and sugared the elms in a well-known place for 

 them, but onl}^ a few odd ones came. A trial round at other elms told 

 the same tale, so I can fairly conclude they are a failure for the season 

 and go off to the beeches to look at X. aurago, when at once I find 

 plenty of moths in such beauty and variety as should satisfy any one. 

 This condition of thiugs is continually occurring. 



Another important thing in sugaring is to keep a sharp look out 

 and recognise early what is going to be a species of the year, for 

 every year brings some particular kind more plentifully than usual, 

 and this is the time to follow it up, for you know not when you may 

 see it so again. 



I find it pays, too, in going to a distant sugaring ground to put 

 on a little stuff in likely places along the way, just to look at in 

 coming home, most of the moths are perhaps off when I return, but 

 there are usually enough left to show what the place is producing just 

 then, and often to let me into a secret. 



To make the most of a species, the time at which it prefers to 

 come to sugar must be noted. 8ome kinds come at once when it is 

 dark, aud are over on the second round to the trees or bushes ; others 

 come later ; iV^. rJtomhoidea does not come with a rush, but keeps 

 dropping on quietly for hours. With aurago, the bulk is obtained on 

 the first and second round, but still they come steadily for a long time 



