COLLECTING AUTUMNAL LEPIDOPTERA. 205 



one V. cardui, sufficiently dissipated-looking to suggest that it was 

 not its first night's wandering. 



Nothing need be said about autumnal sugaring or collecting at 

 ivy-bloom, both being so well understood and popular; but has 

 daylight sugaring been tried ? For the Vanessidse, to those who 

 want them or other daylight insects, sugaring flowers in rides of 

 woods will be found well worthy of trial. If V. antiopa gets within 

 scent of that sugar, it is likely it may become a prisoner. 



Autumn is the time to fill up one's blanks among the 

 members of the genus Peronia. These moths have a habit of 

 sitting during the afternoon for an hour or two before flight, 

 in September and October, in warm, sunny situations. I have 

 taken good series of both P. lipsiana and P. maccana off the 

 upper sides of bracken leaves in Scotland, where they were also 

 to be found upon the leaves of bilberry, when bracken was 

 absent. Peronia rufana occurred on the leaves of the sweet gale 

 and dwarf sallow on the moors ; P. mixtana on the heather ; 

 P. schalleriana and P. comparana in the woods on any leaves ; 

 P. comariana and its varieties occur on strawberry leaves in 

 gardens ; P. var'iegana on roses, sallows, and hawtliorn ; P. hastana 

 on sallows, especially the dwarf varieties near the sea-side on 

 sand-hills. Peronia cristana is, of course, more local, but not 

 so much so as P. permutana, which frequents the beds of dwarf 

 roses on the sand-hills near Wallasey, Cheshii-e. They are best 

 smoked out, by which means I have taken a hundred specimens 

 in a single afternoon. 



Smoking out Lepidoptera in autumn is very profitable, if 

 properly conducted, but highly dangerous if any carelessness 

 occurs. I have tried all the plans recommended in books and 

 otherwise, but found none so easy or effective as by the 

 commonest fuzees. Tliose with stems wrapped with wire were 

 best. If a gentle wind blows, hold one of these fuzees down 

 close to the ground before striking it, when the smoke will get 

 well into the herbage and bring out everything, spiders included. 

 Many a good bag have I made by this means, but great care 

 must be taken to see that each fuzee is quite extinguished before 

 lighting another, or we may have more smoke than we care 

 about. A dozen boxes will do a good afternoon's work. The 

 herbage should not be too stunted, nor too much of one character, 

 for a mixture of food-plants is suggestive of a variety of species 



