﻿%% ?HE ENtOMOLO^iSf. ■ 



his collection which otherwise he might seldom, if ever, mate. 

 Among the methods of taking moths at light, these observations 

 will be confined to the working of gas-lamps, to a method 

 followed by me for years, and, lastly, with reference to captures 

 made personally, with the exception of a solitary insect. 



Perhaps our best hunting-ground here is a lonely road 

 about half a mile south of the city. Along one side stretches a 

 plantation of miscellaneous trees and undergrowth, chiefly oak ; 

 on the other is a footway, with lamps two hundred yards apart. 

 Beyond this open fields stretch away into the country. A 

 hawthorn hedge bounds the road on either side. 



I rarely take a net, my only apparatus being a cyanide bottle 

 • — the cyanide (of potassium) being covered by a layer of cotton- 

 wool — and a twelve-foot ladder, taken close by a few silent 

 friends from a neighbouring graveyard. The bottle is an 

 ordinary pomade-bottle ; it fits the waistcoat-pocket, and so, 

 with the aid of the cotton-woo], prevents the insects from rolling 

 about. The ladder I prefer to all other appliances, because the 

 outside, inside, and framework of the lamps can be examined. 

 Again, the use of the ladder enables the entomologist to work 

 with little interruption, the collector being taken as a rule for 

 a "gas-man." Nevertheless, the night is sometimes varied by 

 incidents more or less amusing. You become " a character well- 

 known to the police " ; nay, it is likely enough that the stalwart 

 officer on the beat, in spiked helmet and greatcoat, may assist in 

 " running in " — to the cyanide bottle — a refractory insect. 



Many moths, not even singed by the flame, rest inside the 

 lamps ; many of course on the glass outside ; but others, such 

 as Pcecilocampa populi and Asteroscopus sphinx (cassinea), lie 

 close to the framework inside, outside, and under the lamp, so 

 that they are invisible to a spectator on the footway. Again, a 

 female, finding herself imprisoned, will often deposit her eggs in 

 the lamp, or she may be captured, taken home, and made use of 

 for breeding purposes. All this can be best effected by means of 

 a ladder. I have carried mine, to be modest, one hundred miles. 

 It is well to have in one's pocket two or three chip-boxes to 

 accommodate eggs or females. My only companion, in nine 

 cases out of ten, is a trusted stick. 



All moths are not equally attracted by the lamps. I never 

 took a single hawk-moth, or a Tcsniocampa, although the latter 

 might be swarming on the sallows near. P. populi comes well to 

 lamps ; not so Eriogaster la?iestris, its near relative. Up to 1889 

 I had only one record of Plusia gamma, when in that year the 

 insect changed its character and became a nuisance. I never 

 took a Dicranura vinula. But my experience goes to show that 

 the great majority of moths, males chiefly, come to lamps, and 

 more especially the Geometers. Among the latter, Hybernia, 



