80 THE PLEASURES OF MOTH HUNTING. 
are also Xylophasia polyodon, X. hepatica, and yes, it is the lovely 
little Peach Blossom, Zhyatira batis, but the shy creature was too 
quick for us, the gleam of the light soon drove it away. But 
look on the ground here at the foot of the tree—two Yellow 
Underwings, and one Hepatica, positively intoxicated, perfectly 
helpless. Oh, sight fora Temperance Society! Pick them up 
and preserve them as proofs of the fondness of moths for drink. 
The other tree trunks afford us a few choicer specimens, and now 
we wend our way to the sheet and lantern. Why, where can the 
spot be? Surely this is near where we left them: we wander up 
and down, round and round, finding ourselves continually coming 
back to the same place, but no sign of a sheet, no friendly ray to 
guide our wildered steps. Lost, lost ina wood at midnight, and 
we cannot tell which way to turn, or where to look for a path. 
How very horrible! And yet it makes one feel romantic, because 
you see there is no danger, only inconvenience; we can wander 
about till the morning, and then we are certain to find our way out; 
still we should prefer not to do this. Stay; a‘‘ happy thought” 
strikes me; let us make our way up to the highest ground, as 
straight as we can. What a relief, here is the way out. Nowa 
fresh start, and by the aid of a better path we find our parapher- 
nalia, but there is nothing on it, and as it is getting very early, 
we pack up, and start homewards. 
Beating the hazel and hawthorn bushes as we go, we find 
dozens of night-feeding caterpillars, letting themselves down by 
a thread, spider-like, as we shake the branches, and crawling up 
again when they think the danger over. They are mostly Geome- 
tride, and by taking some home, and caging them, we may succeed 
in obtaining a moth or two that we do not often find in the per- 
fect state. 
These are some of the ‘Pleasures of Moth Hunting,” and 
many of our readers no doubt will say, queer pleasures they are. 
We have, however, only told of a ramble during a summer night ; 
what would they say to an hour or two in a cold bleak night in 
March or April, such as we have spent looking over the sallows 
by the stream at the Marsh, and picking choice specimens of the 
Hebrew Character, Zeniocampa Gothica, and others of the same 
