The apparatus required for this work need not differ in any important respect from that recommended for butterflies. The same net is used, any reliable killing bottle will do, and the pins and collecting box used for butterflies are equally serviceable. But your mode of procedure is very different.
As you walk towards your proposed hunting ground you will do well to examine the trunks of trees, old walls, and wooden fences. In this way you will meet with moths fast asleep, which are consequently easily taken. All you have to do is to hold the open killing bottle obliquely just below the insect, and then push it gently downward with a small twig or stalk. As a rule the moth will drop direct into the bottle and make no attempt to fly away; but some are very light sleepers, ready to take flight at the slightest disturbance; and when dealing with these you must be careful to bring the mouth of the killing bottle so closely round them that there is no room for flight except into the bottle itself. It is well, however, not to take long at this kind of searching, but to reserve as much as possible of your time for what you consider to be a very favourable locality.
Speaking generally, a good locality for butterflies is a favourable
one also for moths, and you will do well to give special attention to well-grown hedges, especially those that surround clover fields; also overgrown banks, the borders of woods, open spaces in woods, the trunks of isolated trees, gravel pits, and old chalk quarries.
Walk beside or among the undergrowth of woods, or among the tall herbage of waste places, tapping the branches and twigs with the handle of your net as you go. Then, if your locality is well selected, you will rouse moths to flight at almost every stroke. Some of these will shoot upward among the lofty branches and disappear quite beyond your reach; others will fly rather low and somewhat heavily, giving you favourable opportunities to try your skill with the net; others, again, will fly only a yard or so, and alight on a neighbouring leaf, often remaining so quiet that the killing bottle is easily made to inclose them.
There are moths that show a decided preference for large trees. These may be seen hovering about high branches during the evening twilight, and sometimes even in sunshine. In many such cases the chance of a capture seems hopeless, but occasionally one will descend so low that a watchful collector is able to secure it by a sweep of the net.
If at any time you are in a locality by day where you suspect the presence of certain species of moths at rest among the upper branches of trees, such branches should be beaten if possible to dislodge the insects they may shelter. A long stick will often serve this purpose well, and, failing this, a few stones thrown among the branches may prove effectual. In the case of small and rather slender trees, a kick against the trunk will set the whole in vibration sufficient to surprise all the lodgers; and the same effect may be produced with larger trees by giving each a good sound blow with a mallet or some other suitable implement.
This or any other plan of 'beating' for moths is much more conveniently worked by two collectors together than by one alone; for one engaged in beating the herbage cannot be at the same time fully on the alert with the net. If two persons are together, one may take the lead, armed with the beating stick only, while the other, only very slightly in the rear, is always ready to strike.
We have said that butterflies should always be killed in the field, but this plan is not so universally adopted with moths. Many collectors carry a large supply of pill boxes when going out for the latter and then take as many as they possibly can by boxing them
direct in these. This method of 'pill-boxing' is very simple in the case of the lazy and soundly sleeping moths. It is only necessary to hold the open box below the insect, and then cause it to fall by pressing the lid down gently on it from above.