APATURW^. 109 



it flew in the sunshine. " Sugar " when smeared upon the 

 trunks, to attract noctuae on the previous night, is some- 

 times appreciated by it in the daytime. Its taste, however, is 

 generally for something more highly flavoured. Dead animalsj 

 the reverse of sweet, whether nailed up in the gamekeeper's 

 " museum " or laid purposely in a woodland path, are decidedly 

 appreciated, and have led many a brilliant Emperor into the 

 net, which would not readily have reached him in his proper 

 haunts. He is even accused of a taste for matters still more 

 offensive, and the savoury (!) smell of a pigstye is sometimes 

 an irresistible attraction. His singular fondness for putrid 

 animal substances was noticed as long ago as 1857, when 

 some interesting remarks on the subject appeared in the 

 Entomologist's Wcehh/ rntclligmccr, by Mr. W. Sturgess, of 

 Kettering, Northamptonshire, as follows : — " You may 

 judge how agreeably sui-prised I was to learn, one scorching 

 day in July, that his majesty had been caught regaling him- 

 self upon the imperial delicacies of dead stoats, weasels, <fec., 

 hanging upon some low bushes as a terror to evil-doers. I 

 need scarcely say that I did not neglect the first opportunity 

 of visiting the spot, and had the satisfaction of seeing, within 

 the space of an hour, three Emperors descend from their 

 thrones to feed upon these delicious viands." " The result of 

 captures by this method is, from July 11th to 2-kh, eighty 

 specimens. The experiment was tried in a wood of some 1300 

 acres, where A. iris appeared to be plentiful. The keeper 

 kindly consented to nail a portion of rabbit-skin and the 

 wing of a bird on the end of his house ; a similar bait was 

 placed on a lime-heap about a dozen yards distant, with 

 result as given above. The simplicity of this method 

 of capture gives it a gi-eat advantage over the ordinary 

 one '" [by means of a net at the end of a long rod or 

 pole], " to say nothing of its being the more proUfic of the 

 two. A great objection to the usual method is the length 

 of time the insect must remain struggling in the net, which 

 is almost sure to damage its delicate plumage, if not already 



