Sugaring for Moths 



have put into the bucket four pounds of cheap sugar. Now we 

 will pour in a bottle of stale beer and a little rum. We have 

 stirred the mixture well. In our pockets are our cyanide jars. 

 Here are the dark lanterns. Before the darkness falls, while yet 

 there is light enough to see our way along the path, we will pass 

 from tree to tree and apply the brush charged with the sweet 

 semi-intoxicating mixture to the trunks of the trees. 



The task is accomplished! Forty trees and ten stumps have 

 been baptized with sugar-sweetened beer. Let us wash our 

 sticky fingers in the brook and dry them with our handkerchiefs. 

 Let us sit down on the grass beneath this tree and puff a good 

 Havana. It is growing darker. The bats are circling overhead. 

 A screech-owl is uttering a plaintive lament, perhaps mourning 

 the absence of the moon, which to-night will not appear. The 

 frogs are croaking in the pond. The fireflies soar upward and 

 flash in sparkling multitudes where the grass grows rank near 

 the water. 



Now let us light our lamps and put a drop or two of chloro- 

 form into our cyanide jars, just enough to slightly dampen the 

 paper which holds the lumps of cyanide in place. We will 

 retrace our steps along the path and visit each moistened spot 

 upon the tree-trunks. 



Here is the last tree which we sugared. There in the light 

 of the lantern we see the shining drops of our mixture clinging 

 to the mosses and slowly trickling downward toward the 

 ground. Turn the light of the lantern full upon the spot, 

 advancing cautiously, so as not to break the dry twigs under 

 foot or rustle the leaves. Ha ! Thus far nothing but the black 

 ants which tenant the hollows of the gnarled old tree appear 

 to have recognized the offering which we have made. But 

 they are regaling themselves in swarms about the spot. Look 

 at them ! Scores of them, hundreds of them are congregat- 

 ing about the place, and seem to be drinking with as mucn en- 

 joyment as a company of Germans on a picnic in the wilds of 

 Hoboken. 



Let us stealthily approach the next tree. It is a beech. 

 What is there? Oho! my beauty! Just above the moistened 

 patch upon the bark is a great Catocala. The gray upper wings 

 are spread, revealing the lower wings gloriously banded with 



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