]04 
IXTRODUCTIOXi 
have a soft and gentle flight ; as, for instance, 
mia pyralina, one of my most welcome visitors, 
whose entrance I am usually made aware of hy see- 
ing something drop dorm on the table, as quick as 
hail, but as light as a fleece of snow ; whilst, on the 
contrary, the conceited vagaries and absurd violence 
of Clisiocampa neustria are absolutely amusing; 
and cratcegi and populi are nearly as bad. It is not 
the Nocluma alone that come to me in the night — 
many of what IVIr. Stephens calls the Semidiurna, 
the Geometridai, accompany them at aU hours. It 
may likewise be worth while to say a word on my 
method of securing my prey. Suppose that, either 
with or without a Img-mt, I have imprisoned a 
moth under an inverted uine-glass, I then light a 
small piece of German tinder, half the size of a 
sixpence, or less, and introduce it under the edge, 
and by means of the smoke the insect is stupified 
almost immediately. It is then wholly in my power, 
though it would quickly revive : — I pierce it ; and, 
by means of a pin dipped in oxalic acid, and thrust 
into the body beneath the thorax, I prevent its 
revival, and fix it on the settling board. Tlie Ger- 
man tinder does not injure the colour, as brimstone 
would, whilst it puts the moth so completely in my 
power for a few moments, that the specimens I thus 
take and kill are often as perfect and beautiful as if 
I had bred them. Of course, I use it for insects 
taken in the day, or bred, as well as for those cap- 
tured by the lamp*.” The locality to which the 
• Biitomological Magazine for January 1834, page 39. 
