BULLETIN OF THE BROOKLYN ENT. SOC. 13. 



A good way to get rare Lepidoptera. 

 By (jeo. D. Hulst. 



Butterflies and moths lay on the average from ioo to yuo eggs. As 

 a rule there is from year to year comparatively no increase in the number 

 < if imagines. Of the vast number of eggs consequently, on the average 

 only two arrive to the state of the perfect insect. The rest are all destroy- 

 ed by disease, by accident, by parasites, or by the birds. 



An egg of a butterfly or moth is not an easy thing to find, but when 

 the chances in numbers at least are some 500 to 1 in its favor as compared 

 with the imago, it may not be so hard after all. Certainly in the case of 

 rare night livers, a systematic and careful search for eggs, results in many 

 more trophies than running the chance of getting the imagines otherwise. 

 It becomes in their ease a chance of many thousand to one in favor of 

 obtaining the egg. 



A method which has in our own case and that of a friend, been very 

 successful for obtaining eggs of such rarities as Smerinthus Myops, Sme- 

 rinthus Astvlus, and Darapsa Versicolor has been as follows. 



We go out at the proper season, which is when the females are plenti- 

 ful and somewhat worn, or in the case of rarities at the season when we 

 know they ought to emerge from the pupa, to make our search. In the 

 search for Diurnals we look in some place where the species whose eggs 

 are desired have been seen; and in the case of Sphingida.% along fences or 

 by the sides of roads or paths in the woods, and especially in the neighbor- 

 hood of flowers apt to be visited In them, such as the Bouncing Bet 

 {Saponaria officinalis) or the white Swamp, honey suckle {Azalea viscosa). 

 Making a beginning anywhere, we turn up the branches of the food plant 

 of the insect one bv one, and scan closely the under side of each leaf So 

 we go oil patientlv from bush to bush, hour after hour. It is often slow 

 work when looking for rarities. I have hunted for three days in divers 

 places, without a sign of what I was looking for. All along however one 

 is cheered with finding eggs and larvae of more common species and some- 

 times of unlooked for rarities. So its like fishing; we take in our Porgies 

 and Weakfish till our Sheepshead makes his appearance. When once how- 

 ever we strike an egg or very young larva we are better off than when we 

 take a Sheepshead, for we know other eggs or larvae are around. As a 

 rule a butterfly or moth follows a path or fence side when laying; So up- 

 on finding the first egg or larva we more minutely examine each shrub for 

 the_\- are very apt to lay an vgg on each prominent one as they go along. 

 And it is not difficult to follow the path of the parent for quite a distance. 

 And so the finding of one egg means almost surely the finding of more. 



