306 [December.'' 



after : gilvago has different ways ; they come fairly well the first 

 round or so, and then seem over for the night — but they are not ; I 

 have only got a third of my night's capture, after about 9 or 9.30 

 they come more in earnest, and 1 get the other two-thirds between 

 then and midnight. Catocala sponsa and proinissa come very early, 

 but they come late also, and the special time for nupta is late. 



The sugar i use is "Egyptian raw," a date sugar. This is very 

 dark and strong stuff, sand-like, and free from lumps, and, it mixes 

 easily without boiling, i simply mix it with beer, and then add a drop 

 or two of essence of pears just before starting out. No rum, there 

 is rum enough in good sugar, and to add more is only to make the 

 moths drop off before they can be bagged. "Jamaica loots" is a 

 good sugar too, but it is lumpy and needs boiling. Old black treacle 

 will do fairly well as a bait, but "golden syrup" I believe to be a 

 fraud. Beetroot sugars, or refined sugars, are of course bad, and if 1 

 am somewhere where i can get only these, then, and then only, 1 

 add rum. 



It is best not to have the sugar too thin, or it bespatters about so 

 in applying to the twigs, and on the trunks it trickles down among 

 the brambles or herbage below, and gives trouble. If the trickliugs 

 or droppings are not there, the moths come the more surely to where 

 it is put on in convenient places. 

 Heading .- November, 1892. 



Note on the apjplication of " sugar." — Much has been written as to the materials 

 of wiiich " sugar " should be made, and the relative materials of various recipes, but 

 comparatively little of the materials to which it should be applied. 



fSo far as my experience has gone, the following are unsuitable receptacles for 

 the fragrant liquid, viz., stones, paUngs, posts, and dead trees. As a rule (to which, 

 however, as to every generalization regarding sugaring, there are exceptions) insects 

 will settle by preterence on sugar otherwise placed. Again, where slugs and woodlice 

 are plentiful, moths are usually scarce. The neighbourhood oi dust or retuse heaps 

 should be avoided. Open places are better than those closely shut in. I'er contra, 

 sugar on jlowers i have usually found to be more attractive than that placed else- 

 where ; next after Howers i have found gurse bushes and the leafy twigs of young 

 fir trees. J^'lowers and twigs are very troublesome to search, but they seem to be 

 greatly preferred to tree trunks standing close by. 1 should like to hear something 

 of the experience of others. 



A Canadian entomologist told me that he used slices of apples suspended by 

 string from branches, the apple slices being dipped in syrup every few days ; by this 

 bait he took many tine Catocaice in the "Mountain" Park at Montreal, and said, in 

 favour of the method, that the moths could be seen agauist the sky and bottled 

 without using a lantern, a great advantage close to a great city. — Gr. ±>. Lo^'GSTAFF, 

 Twitchen, Morthoe : /September lUt/t, 1892. 



