LOCALITIES FOR BEGINNERS. 1738 
lamps are lighted when the darkness of night has set in. After 
we have placed our lighthouse in a conspicuous place which will 
command a good area of the fen, behind our lighthouse, or more 
correctly, to windward, we must spread a sheet stretched on two 
poles. This has a double advantage of sheltering our lamps 
from the wind, while at the same time it forms to some extent a 
reflector and convenient background on which to see any specimens 
which fly past the lantern. Having selected our ground and got 
all in order we light our lamps. At the same time it will be as well 
to light our pipes, and, if we can also muster some “ yarn” about 
the great catches of other people, it may encourage us, for we 
must not expect all the good things in the first hour. Watching 
a light for Lepidoptera is a fine exercise for our patience. We 
may have to wait an hour—even two, three, or more hours— 
before our first insect appears; on some nights indeed our 
visitors do not come at all. But when they do come, as said the 
historian of John Gilpin, 
‘May I be there to see.” 
Nearly all groups of Lepidoptera have been known to visit 
the light in a single night, even butterflies. ‘The rule for such a 
night seems little understood as yet, and we can recommend no 
better subject for the study of our readers. An apparently good 
night frequently produces little or nothing, while sometimes those 
collectors who have had the patience or perseverance to stay 
through a wet and windy night find that suddenly the moths 
begin to come, and many rarities are unexpectedly taken. Lights 
may be successfully used the whole summer through, when the 
nights are favourable. Amongst the many insects to be taken are 
the rare Hydrilla palustris, which, until so attracted, was a species 
represented by single specimens in one or two collections only. 
Meliana flammea and Nascia cilialis were almost as rare, but have 
since appeared in most of the best collections, if only in some 
cases as types. Amongst the more plebeian herd are the pretty 
Bankia argentula and Hydrelia wnca; while at times Apamea 
unanimis aud A. fibrosa abound, with an occasional Macrogaster 
arundinis or Simyra venosa, and crowds of Phibalapteryx lignata. 
In addition to these we get ona good night many strange and 
uninvited guests, such as bats, beetles, flies, with numbers of 
Chelonia caja, which flounder about and drive away our more 
uristocri.tic visitors, Enough I think has from time to time 
