56 
particular moths to frequent particular mixtures. This seems to me to 
be reasonable, because natural scents and flavours are various, and no 
doubt some prove more attractive than others. Yet I would most care¬ 
fully guard myself against seeming to imply that I think that insects 
have the same idea of scents or stinks that we have. Apatura iris is said 
to like offal—I don’t. My only serious attempt to capture his majesty, 
with a drowned pig and a rotten rabbit, certainly drove him away, if 
he was in the neighbourhood at all, and I don’t blame him either. 
The French are said to “ sugar ” (!) with rotten decomposed soap-suds, 
and the largest catch of insects I ever saw, was made with a mixture of 
sugar and urine. And besides this, three years’ residence in Rainham 
has taught me that if insects appreciated sweetness as much as we do, 
they would have used their advantage over men by flying away as fast 
as possible, and that collecting in the neighbourhood and for miles 
round would be perfectly useless. 
I never consult temperature, wind or moon, agreeing with a cor¬ 
respondent that all depends upon the temper of the moths. Sometimes 
they Avon’t come, sometimes they will, and I have found that, given the 
sugar, it does not much matter what the other conditions may be. The 
only condition which stops me is, when heavy rain, running down the 
tree trunks, washes the sugar off, and this difficulty I have partly over¬ 
come, by nailing pieces of board on to the trees, so placed that the 
running Avater does not pass over the sugar. 
I must now jDass on to my experience in the past season. My diary, 
which has been posted up with more or less regularity for a good many 
years, and which contains entries as far back as 1870, tells me that up 
to the end of May feAv things were about. During June, matters 
improved slightly, though the species taken were of the commonest, 
and the specimens feAv and far between. 
On the last day of June (a Saturday, I remember, because being out 
of rum, I felt that it Avas not quite the thing for me to go either in 
person, or by deputy, into a public-house bar, on that particular evening) 
I first added methylated spirit to the mixture, and from that date fortune 
smiled upon me once more. Whether the novelty of the scent (a trace 
of paraffin oil), or a change in the weather, or a general agreement 
amongst the moths that strikes were played out led to this happy change 
I do not knoAv ; all I do know is, that Avitli the use of methylated spirit 
my luck turned, and I had no longer to Avrite in my diary “ nothing at 
sugar.” 
It is unnecessary to say more about methods of collecting, therefore 
I Avill content myself with mentioning, seriatim, those amongst my 
captures Avhich seem to me to call for notice. Specimens of most of 
these I have arranged in the two cases which I have brought Avith me 
to-night. 
On July 5tli, I took the first specimen of Agrotis obscura, a 
lovely specimen, the neat appearance, glossy wings, and bright red costa 
of which, both delighted and puzzled me. I had never seen the species 
alive before, and, like so many of my recent correspondents, I had onty 
very poor specimens in my cabinet. I confess, Avithout shame, that I 
thought at first that I had taken a curiously-marked Noctua augur, a 
mistake which Avas made the more excusable by the capture, the same 
e\ T ening of a very red sjDecimen of the latter insect, the red tint being 
very much the same as that on the costa of the former. 
