55 
But you must not suppose that you know Rainham from what you 
see from the railway line. The parish extends over a wide area. My 
boundaries extend three miles north-east and three miles south-east, while 
some two-and-a-half miles of the northern bank of the river Thames come 
under my care. This district embraces a variety of country. Towards 
the river, it consists of marshes, reed-beds and coarse-grass lands, with 
occasional saltings and mud-banks ; while to the north and east, the 
land rises gradually and becomes more wooded. But even this higher 
land is not so productive as one would expect. The farmers fell what 
trees they dare, and the hedges are cropped down in the merciless fashion, 
which denotes, I believe, the presence of ‘‘high cultivation” and 
“scientific farming.” 
But be the district what it may, so far as actual collecting goes it 
interests me little. My occupation limits my efforts chiefly to the use 
of sugar. It is rarely that I get a chance of using the net. Happily I 
have a decent garden, and this garden I “ sugar ” regularly every night, 
from March or April to October, by which time I find that human 
nature refuses to set out any more insects, and my captures generally 
go either mouldy, or else hopelessly stiff. I sugar then regularly in 
my own garden, just beside the railway station (where, by the way, I 
notice sometimes that a whistle from a passing engine will startle insects 
off the sugar), and also, once a week, in a spinny some three miles away, 
which spinny is my nearest approach to a wood. Once or twice I have 
tried sugar among the reed-beds, with no result, save the very curious 
captures which will be noticed farther on. 
Every night, during the months I have indicated, the sugar pot is 
brought out (usually by a small boy duty instructed in the art), 
almost every tree and post in the garden is smeared with the mixture, 
and the “round ” is visited by me as early or as late as I can manage. 
I use the coarsest, moistest, darkest sugar obtainable. All of you 
know, of course, what a difference there is in sugars. Like the nigger, 
they may be known by the smell. The ideal sugar, for our purpose, 
“ Jamaica Foots ”—so difficult to obtain now—being the lowest part of 
the contents of the hogsheads of unrefined sugar, was always to be known 
by its sweet sugary smell, but most samples now obtainable lack this, 
and I imagine, that they are either prepared from beet-root, or else 
have gone through some new process of refining, which has removed 
the nice, though it has certainty developed the nasty, odour. This 
odour is itself deceptive, for I have heard of an entomologist, who felt 
sure that the sugar which he used was the right, because it smelt of feet. 
I mix the sugar with beer to the consistency of treacle, add methy¬ 
lated spirit (instead of rum), and a flavouring of oil of aniseed or essence 
of jargonelle pears (amylic acetate). I have tried the addition of poppy- 
heads and chloral hydrate to the mixture, hoping more effectually to 
stupefy the insects, but without much success, though I fancied that the 
poppy heads did quiet them a little ; at any rate, this much is certain, 
that these latter additions do not drive the moths away. 
A brother collector tells me that he once tried adding gin, and that 
he did not repeat the experiment, because he found that the insects fell 
from the trees and lay stupefied upon their backs on the ground before 
he could get round the first time! 
I am certainty under the impression that change and variety in the 
way of scents and flavours prove an advantage, and that I have noticed 
