1912] Barisch — "Sugaring" in the Autumn 197 



objects more than 100 feet away, while on the 19th a heavy misty 

 rain was falhng, also shutting out the landscape. On both even- 

 ings shortly after dark a southwest wind sprung up, clearing the 

 atmosphere and also bringing with it the moth of the "cotton 



worm," Alabama argillacea Hiibner, which came freely to our 



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sugar. 



The moths however acted very differently on these two days. 

 On the ISth they rested very quietly on the "sugar" and were 

 not disturbed very much by our approach, so that it was possible 

 to take all the specimens we desired which were there. We were 

 fortunate enough to secure over one hundred, each of us. On the 

 19th, however, the moths behaved very badly, and if they had 

 not been ten times more numerous than previously I am afraid 

 we would have caught very few of them. They seemed to be 

 swarmmg about the "sugar" and on one tree I counted over fifty 

 specimens, but I was able to secure less than a dozen on this tree. 

 It was very exciting and interesting to collect as many as ten 

 different species of Xylina, with a Catocala here and there, also 

 several Scopelosoma and many other interesting insects. Besides 

 the moths, we found two species of ants. (Cremastogaster sp., 

 and Lasius niger var. americanus), some Ichneumonidse and 

 Vespidse, Coleoptera (mostly Carabidse Lampyridse, also Tene- 

 brionidse), Orthoptera (Diapheromera femorata and Gryllus penn- 

 sylvanicus) , Diptera and Myriapoda. 



We found on all our trips that the first round of the trees yielded 

 about TO per cent of our catch, the second round about 25 per cent, 

 and the third round only 5 per cent. Of course the second and 

 third rounds yielded different species from the first, showing con- 

 clusively that certain species feed later than others and it is 

 therefore advisable to make several trips in order to secure these 

 different late feeding species. We made a later attempt on the 

 26th of October after three days of heavy rainfall and found 

 that the moths came quite freely to the "sugar," but only the 

 more common and more numerous species, showing that the rain 

 in all probability had killed them in large numbers or that they 

 were still too weak to fly. 



These "sugaring" experiments also gave us some data as to the 

 length of the flying period of some of the Catocalas. We had 

 taken Catocala arnica f. nerissa, Hy. Edw., in the middle of July 



