BUTTERFLY MERCHANTS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10586, 15 October 1910, Page 3 (Supplement)

BUTTERFLY MERCHANTS.

The butterfly hunter's business is both an adventurous and a profitable one. Butterfly merchants have establishments in every large European city, and in one or two American ones, where butterflies, unmounted, and carefully packed into neat three cornered envelopes, are sold at prices which sound astonishing to the novice. Let a butterfly or < moth bo beautiful and buyers will'be quickly found, even if the Variety is quite plentiful. Let; a butterfly or moth.be rare; and.the prices go tip accordingly. But when the specimen that is valuable both for beauty and rarity is found, says the Wellspring, then the fortunate possessor can realise largely on it. A single exquisite and rare butterfly was gladly bought not long ago fo*- over £6OO by a' European collector. To catch these fragile creatures with a butterfly net is not always easy. Sometimes they fly too high to be reached by the hunter. Somo • night-flying moths are well nigh impossible to pursue. So, from the exigencies of . the business, the butterfly hunter long since learned to use decoys, to make sugar traps and even to raise butterflies instead of chasing them.. In the tropics, an overripe banana will often attract beautiful insects, if left in a suitable place in the jungle. Molasses with a dash of ,-rum on it, smeared on a tree trunk, will draw moths that otherwise would bp beyond hoping for. The. collector, making his round with a dark lantern, finds the gorgeous creatures half drunk, too stupefied to fly away, and fills his collecting jars with prizes. Sometimes of course a jaguar or an alligator may collect the collector, lantern and all, in his night journey in the swampy forests; but the butterfly hunter, like any other tropical hunter, takes these perils as part of, his calling. If he is wise he will collect caterpillars and cocoons of' fine or rare species ■whenever he can and will hatch and raise specimens in this -.way Tll e most perfect specimens are thus obtained the. world over. In England one man of v science and exnerience has started-' a butterfly farm, where he cultivates'butterflies and moths by . the -thousand. He issues a periodical price list of hpt only sjro.vn specimens but larvie, chrysalids, eggs, and so forth. In the dull season he lias 40,000 caterpillars in his nursery. 11l the busy part of his year he has three times as many and keeps two assistants to help him with his work. The farm is in two parts. One is the three-quarters of an aero around the collector's house: Here 'are planted all kinds of crops for butterfly feed. Also then; are three conservatories, two of them unhealed. The stock is kept in cages, which can be moved from one bed of plants to another. In the violet bed for example 10,000 larvro of the silver washed fritillarv arc let down in their cages to eat and be merry. A bed of dead nettles holds cage after cage of the scarlet tiger caterpillar. Given th». food they best enjoy and kepi m luxurious quiet, the caterpillars flourish exceedingly, and the. result is magnificent chrvsalids and superb specimens. Some little distance away m the heart of a wood is the rest of the /arm—halt an acre this time. Here built around U\c growing trees arc cages of d.i'ccrenb tvpo, made cf wood :uid perforated zinc, and sometimes twelve leel square. These hold, or enclose, swarjris of caterpillars or pupie, which thrive, in con : tented seclusion and turn out as well as any entomologist could wish. Tho farm has on hand, m dead stock, about 100,000 specimens, in sets, with prices v ranging from two cents to £7. As the farmer raises only British butterflies and moths, tho prices are temperate, not tropical. For the most part the salo is by sets, however, and in these each specimen has -a proportional value considerably greater than bv itself. English schools and • museums buy many collections of thin kind. In' this country a collection of tho butterflies of Massachusetts— some p-ixty varieties—wj 11 readily command £5 'or over'4o cents.a butterfly. If a collection of the *iosl important—not the rare —butterflies of the world ■is wanted, the price.leaps to £2OO or so: and if a collection of rarities is aimed for, there-is no-limit to the value. Even" a broken wing of the exquisite Morphos .butterfly of '-South America will find its' market,- so great is the demand for. this brilliant, iridescent and marvellously "marked creature.. Indeed, one' American manufacturer has mads a patented specialty of jewellery wrought from-butterflies' wings, and,a famous Paris dressmaker has used rare butterflies as models in making -airu"ial and beautiful combinations end shadings of colors. After seeing some Indian butterflies also, the markings of an India shav-1 are easily ex~ plained in their patterns.

To prevent cooking odours, fill a tin cup with vinegar and place it on the back of the stove. This will prevent the spread of cooking odours throughout the house.