Day 50: How to Be a Butterfly and Moth Collector Part One

First you need a butterfly net. Even for moths sometimes, to catch them on the wing. These are my father's final three nets, which I gave to a collector friend of his.

It is illegal to collect butterflies in National Parks, so when my father would see a ranger coming, he'd stuff the net up his shirt. Somehow he never was caught.

My parents' old clothes hamper (yes, they did replace items once in a while) resided in the garage, filled with moth collecting stuff: old sheets, black lights and extension cords. Moths are also attracted to regular white light bulbs and my dad had his favorite rural post office lights and old phone booths to check, and our porch light bulb was never yellow.

Moths are also attracted to certain scents; there was a brand of aftershave that mimicked the scent of female moths of certain species and that's the only brand my dad ever wore. (Never around my mother; only around moths!)

Moths would sit on the white sheet (thinking they had made it to the moon I suppose...) and my dad would scoop the ones he wanted into one of his "killing jars." Unfortunately I do not have one to show you as my brother threw them all out. But here are some instructions in case you ever want to make one: https://www.uky.edu/Ag/Entomology/ythfacts/4h/unit1/mkjar.htm  And contrary to the advice in these instructions, my dad's killing jars contained cyanide. He used to bury the jar of cyanide in the back yard of the Gardena house under the drain pipe. I used to like to show the poison skull and crossbones to my friends.

LATER: I have found a photo of my very young father at work moth collecting. I believe this was before collectors started using ultraviolet light; he is just attracting them with a lantern. But that sheet could well be one of the ones in the color photos below!

Also if you look closely, he has a killing jar in his hand...

After the moth or butterfly was dead (very quick and I'm sure it was a more pleasant death than being eaten alive by a lizard) you put it in a plastic box with some kind of softening agent and after that it was pinned with its wings spread and paper strips over the wings on a wooden mounting board. I can't show you these pieces of equipment either as they are also gone, but here is my father's trusty microscope:

In the early days my father did not mount his specimens. He kept them in glassine envelopes, or folded paper. These two drums were filled with thousands of these envelopes.

Several weeks after they were emptied and all those specimens given away, I found two more boxes full of these envelopes.

I spent a lot of time sifting through them. Where's Mint Canyon?

More to follow in part two!