iSyS.] 
The Senses of the Lower Animals . 
303 
see a Geotrupes come flying along in a straight line, not 
hawking or searching about, and drop at once upon some 
recently deposited ordure. Where burying beetles are com- 
mon they may be seen, in like manner, flying one after 
another to some dead mole, or shrew, lying amidst high 
grass, and certainly incapable of being seen from a distance. 
Every housewife must have noticed with what importunate 
assiduity the common blow-fly will hover about a cupboard 
or safe enclosing meat, even when the contents are totally 
hidden from view. It is especially interesting to note that 
certain plants which to our senses emit the odour of carrion 
prove attractive to carrion-flies. It is less generally known 
that some of the most beautiful butterflies are attracted by 
excrementitious and putrescent matters, and may even be 
lured within reach of the entomologist’s net by such baits. 
This scarcely agrees with the poetical notions of butterfly- 
life ; but alas ! Psyche will sip the foetid moisture from 
carrion as eagerly as the neCtar from the purest flower. A 
dead weasel or rat nailed against a tree-trunk will often 
induce the “ purple emperor ” to descend from the tree-tops 
over which he is wont to flutter. The Papilios and giant 
Ornithopteras of warmer climates may also be captured by 
similar stratagems. According to Mr. W. M. Gabb,* the 
brilliant Morphos of Nicaragua may be caught “ by baiting 
with a piece of over-ripe or even rotting banana,” whilst at 
other times they were almost unapproachable. The same 
author adds that his native servants “ always carried with 
them a fermented paste of maize-flour, which they mixed 
with water to the consistency of gruel, as a beverage. On 
our arriving at the side of a stream in a narrow gorge, in- 
variably, within a few minutes after they opened a package 
of this paste, although there might not have been a butterfly 
in sight before, these most brilliant of their kind would come 
sailing up, always from the leeward.” Our common 
Vanessa Atalanta is, in like manner, attracted by the smell 
of over-ripe or rotting fruit, especially plums. 
One of the commonest and most successful methods of 
capturing noCturnal Lepidoptera, i.e. } sugaring, depends on 
an appeal to their sense of smell. A thick syrup of coarse 
brown sugar is mixed by some experts with rum, by others 
with porter, and by others again with a little vinegar, — all 
strong odorous fluids,* — and the composition is smeared upon 
the trunks of trees. The moths come to sip the syrup, and 
are caught. 
* Nature, February 7, 1878. 
