On One Side Of The Cottage There Was A Verandah, Looking Down
The Whole Side Of The Mountain And To Its Summit On The Right,
All Densely Clothed With Forest.
The boarded sides of the cottage
were whitewashed, and the roof of the verandah was low, and also
boarded and whitewashed.
As soon as it got dark I placed my lamp
on a table against the wall, and with pins, insect-forceps, net,
and collecting-boxes by my side, sat down with a book. Sometimes
during the whole evening only one solitary moth would visit me,
while on other nights they would pour in, in a continual stream,
keeping me hard at work catching and pinning till past midnight.
They came literally by the thousands. These good nights were very
few. During the four weeks that I spent altogether on the hill I
only had four really good nights, and these were always rainy,
and the best of them soaking wet. But wet nights were not always
good, for a rainy moonlight night produced next to nothing. All
the chief tribes of moths were represented, and the beauty and
variety of the species was very great. On good nights I was able
to capture from a hundred to two hundred and fifty moths, and these
comprised on each occasion from half to two-thirds that number of
distinct species. Some of them would settle on the wall, some on
the table, while many would fly up to the roof and give me a chase
all over the verandah before I could secure them.
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