8 



AMERICAN MUSEUM GUIDE LEAFLETS 



place as a base, lay out a circuitous route, "sugaring" something 

 every few feet and end at the resting place. After dark, if luck be 

 good, the sugared strips will be full of moths, eagerly sipping the 

 sweets. Several wide-mouthed cyanide kilUng bottles (see page 11) 

 will be useful, but a net will be practically useless. It is well to have 

 a Httle ether in each bottle, and do not put 

 a moth in a bottle until its predecessors have 

 stopped fluttering. Only experience will teach 

 how to catch these moths with a bottle. Some 

 fly upward when disturbed and some fly straight 

 out or sideways, but the majority drop a few 

 inches before flying, so when in doubt hold the 

 bottle slightly below the prospective captive. 



Light attracts many sorts of insects besides 

 moths. Street and porch Ughts are fruitful hunt- 

 ing grounds. A lamp by an open window 

 makes the room it is in a splendid trap, or a 

 smaller one can be fixed up and put *'in the 

 field." Figure 1 shows the principle. The de- 

 tails vary to suit collectors' whims. It is not 

 difficult to make the box collapsible so that it 

 can easily be transported. An ordinary barn 

 lantern set in the center of a white sheet or a 

 ''bull's-eye" throwing a Ught against a sheet 

 hung over a fence or between trees does very 

 well. In the latter cases a net will be desirable 

 but not easy to use. I have used, with great 

 success, a white cheesecloth tent with a white 

 muslin groundcloth. The best tent was A-shaped, 

 open at each end except for inwardly projecting 

 flys, and about 9 ft. X 6 ft. X 6 ft. high. One 

 or two lanterns, placed inside, made it a good 

 trap, while the outside served as illuminated 

 sheets. Both light and sugar work best where 

 there is a variety of vegetation as where wood- 

 land passes into swamp or where there is an abundance of second 

 growth. 



Many other sorts of traps have been devised. Olive bottles 

 and fruit jars buried up to the neck in the ground and baited 

 with molasses, meat, etc., are simple and effective. The insects 



Figure 2. A collecting tube 

 fitted with a quill for tak- 

 ing insects out of an um- 

 brella. 



