TREACLING 



THE joys of the acquisitive entomologist are many. 

 There is the chance meeting with some rare speci- 

 mens, when no other receptacle is handy but the tall 

 hat, by no means an unlikely event when we re- 

 member that the lepidoptera alone number over 

 two thousand species. There is the fierce pursuit 

 of some active and straight-flying kind over difficult 

 and dangerous country of bog or moorland. There 

 is the careful preservation of growing larvae through 

 the innumerable dangers that beset the scarcer kinds, 

 and the joy of beholding one morning in the breeding- 

 cage a specimen more perfect than can ever be hoped 

 for under natural conditions. There are sallowing, 

 beating, pill-boxing at high noon, gleaning round the 

 street lamp, or trapping by means of arranged lights. 

 Last in order of naming, but first in general affection, 

 is treacling. 



The butterflies of a neighbourhood, however rare, 

 cannot long escape notice. The hours of their 

 appearance are hours of daylight, and their manner 

 of enjoying them is far from unobtrusive. Except 

 in the season of such conspicuous night-flyers as the 

 ghost-moth, the butterflies seem far more numerous 

 than the moths, and the wonder of him who looks 

 into a cabinet is how such legions of the latter can 

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