The Capture, Preparation, and Preservation of Specimens 



tries bananas, especially rotten bananas, seem to have a charm for 

 insects. The cane-trash at sugar-mills is very attractive. If pos- 

 sible, it is well to obtain a quantity of this trash and scatter it 

 along forest paths. Some insects have very peculiar appetites and 

 are attracted by things loathsome. The ordure of carnivorous 

 animals seems to have a special charm for some of the most mag- 

 nificently colored and the rarest of tropical butterflies. A friend of 

 mine in Africa, v^ho collected for me for a number of years, used 

 to keep civet-cats, the ordure of which was collected and placed 

 at appropriate points in the forest paths; and he was richly re- 

 warded by obtaining many insects which were not obtained in 

 any other way. Putrid fish have a charm for other species, and 

 dead snakes, when rankly high, will attract still others. It may 

 be observed that after the trees have been treated for a succession 

 of days or nights with the sweetening mixture spoken of above, 

 they become very productive. When collecting in Japan I 

 made it a rule to return in the morning to the spots that I had 

 sugared for moths the evening before, and I was always amply 

 repaid by finding multitudes of butterflies and even a good many 

 day-flying moths seated upon the mossy bark, feasting upon the 

 remnants of the banquet I had provided the evening before. There 

 is no sport— I do not except that of the angler— which is more 

 fascinating than the sport derived by an enthusiastic entomologist 

 from the practice of "sugaring." It is well, however, to know 

 always where your path leads, and not to lay it out in the dusk, as 

 the writer once did when staying at a well-known summer resort 

 in Virginia. The path which he had chosen as the scene of 

 operations was unfortunately laid, all unknown to himself, just 

 in the rear of the poultry-house of a man who sold chickens to 

 the hotel; and when he saw the dark lantern mysteriously moving 

 about, he concluded that some one with designs upon his hens 

 was hidden in the woods, and opened fire with a seven-shooter, 

 thus coming very near to terminating abruptly the career of an 

 ardent entomologist. 



Beating.— There are many species which are apparently not 

 attracted by baits such as we have spoken of in the preceding 

 paragraph. The collector, passing through the grove, searches 

 diligently with his eye and captures what he can see, but does 

 not fail also with the end of his net-handle to tap the trunks of 

 trees and to shake the bushes, and as the insects fly out, to note 



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