IV. 
SOME METHODS OF MOTH-COLLECTING. 
By 11. W. Bowyer, M.A. 
Extracts from a paper read at Hertford , 28 th February , 1888. 
The subject which I have chosen for my remarks this evening 
is a very wide one, and must of necessity be very superficially 
treated. I have taken as my title the collecting of moths ; 
Lepidoptera would have been better perhaps. I do not mean to 
exclude butterflies altogether, but in England they form a very 
minor division of Lepidoptera. In the first place, as regards 
number, butterflies are 64, compared with moths over 2000 ; of 
these 64 only few would occur in any particular district. The 
collecting of butterflies is necessarily limited by time of day and 
year, and by conditions of weather; whereas the collecting of moths 
begins in January and ends in December, it can be carried on by 
day or night, rain is often useful rather than a hindrance, and in¬ 
doors as well as out of doors the ubiquitous moth is to be found. 
When any one is once imbued with the passion for collecting, a field 
of wonderfully varied beauty and interest is gradually opened 
out to him. Then there can be no such thing as dullness or want 
of object, even in the constitutional walk, if only there is a hedge¬ 
row or a tree or two to examine. 
I believe there is a very general idea that no one can take up 
the collecting of Lepidoptera unless he or she has begun in the 
years of boyhood or girlhood. That is neither my own view nor 
experience. It is a small per-centage of boys who go about with a 
net, catching many an unfortunate insect, who keep up the pursuit 
when they have grown up. When I went to Haileybury as a 
master, I was absolutely ignorant of the subject. 
Having determined to commence, what is necessary in the way 
of apparatus? As regards books, I would recommend Greene’s 
‘Insect Hunter’s Companion,’ which admirably describes all pre¬ 
liminaries—it is the best shilling’s worth that I possess. Newman’s 
‘British Moths and Butterflies’ is first rate as regards the illus¬ 
trations; it has a print of each insect, not coloured, but wonderfully 
exact; the text however is too diffuse, and stress is not properly 
laid on the points of difference between insects which are only 
to be distinguished by minute markings. Stain ton’s ‘ Manual of 
Butterflies and Moths’ is indispensable to the collector of small 
moths, Miero-lepidoptera , which Newman does not treat of; the 
text is concise, clear stress is laid on distinguishing markings, but 
there are woodcuts only here and there. A new edition would be 
a great boon, as the present one is out of date, and many additions 
have been made to the number of British species since it appeared. 
Armed with the first two of these books to begin with, and with 
the third as time goes on, not much more is needed. The Bay 
Society has, in 1885 and 1886, brought out two volumes of ‘Larvae 
