100 COLLECTION AND PRESERVATION OF INSECTS. 



heres. The moths do not come immediately, but in the 

 course of two or three nights it will be visited by swarms, 

 and its attractive power continues, particularly on moist 

 evenings, as long as any saccharine matter remains.* If 

 the hogshead be heated it will be still more attractive, f 

 East India sugar-bags have been employed for the same 

 purpose, with very great success, and on these the moths 

 may be captured with far greater facility than on a sugar- 

 hogshead, which from its shape is less accessible. 



A plan used by the oldest collectors, and one which, as 

 regards individual species, is perhaps the most successful 

 of all, is to place a female moth that has recently emerged 

 from the chrysalis, in a small wooden box with a gauze 

 lid, and take the captive into a wood, when the males of 

 the same species will congregate by hundreds, perfectly 

 fearless of the propinquity of the entomologist ; they will 

 run about over his clothes and hands, and even creep into 

 the pocket of his coat if he happen to have placed there 

 his attractive captive. It has been ascertained that moths 

 thus attracted have travelled miles in so short a space of 

 time, that they must have approached in an almost direct 

 line. 



Nearly the whole of the night-flying moths may occa- 

 sionally be captured in the day : they are found reposing 

 on the north side of the trunks of trees, or park palings, 

 in out-houses, summer-houses, sheds, &c., also in thick 

 bushes, whence they may be beaten into the clap-net, both 

 sticks of which must then be held in the left hand. Many 

 moths thus disturbed from their diurnal slumber immedi- 

 ately take flight, and are very difficult to overtake and 

 catch ; others drop at once into the net and are quickly 

 secured. 



Some moths fly at twilight only, and of these the larger 



* Mr. Doubleday in ' Entomological Magazine.' f Mr. Dale in ditto. 



