Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-09-03
BUTTERFLY MERCHANTS.
Good Demand for Their Wares
English Butterfly Farm.
From the Wellspring.


The butterfly hunters 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 be beautiful
and buyers will be quickly found. even
IL the variety is quite plentiful. Let
a butterfly or moth be rare. and the
prices go up accordingly. But when the
specimen that is valuable both for beauty
and rarity is found then the fortunate
possessor can realize largely on IL. A
single exquisite and rare butterfly was
gladly bought not long ago for over
5000 by a European collector.
To catch these fragile creatures with
a butterfly net is not always easy. Some
times they fly too high to be reached by
the hunter. Some night-hying 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 chas-
ing them.
In the tropics, an overripe banana will
often attract beautiful insects. II left in
a suitable place in the jungle. Molasses
with a dash Of rum on 1t. smeared on a
tree trunk will draw moths that other
wise would be beyond hoping for. The
collector making his round with dark
lantern, finds the gor geouS 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, lam
tern and all. in his night journey in the
swampy forests; but the butterfly hunt
er. like any other tropical hunter. takes
lc 0rf af
II he is wise he will collect caterpil-
lars and cocoons of fine or rare species
whenever he can. and will hatch and
raise specimens in this way. The most
world over. In England one man of
science and experience has started a
butterfly farm, where he cultivates but
terfiies and moths by the thousand.
He issues periodical price list of not
only grown specimens. but larvae. chrys-
Aids. eggs and so forth. In the dull
season he has 10000 caterpillars in his
nursery. In the busy part Of the year
he has three times as many. and keeps
two assistants to help him with the
work.
The farm is in two parts. One Is the
three-quarters Of an acre around the
collectors house. Here are planted all
kinds of crops for butterfly feed. Also
them unheated The stock is kept in
cages. which can be moved from one bed
of plants to another.
In the violet bed, for example 10000
larvae Of the silver washed fritillary are
set down in their cages to eat and be
merry. bed of dead nettles holds cage
after cage of the scarlet tiger caterpillar.
Given the food they best enjoy and kept
in luxurious quiet, the caterpilars -four
ish exceedingly and the result Is mag
nifcent chrysalds and superb specimens.
Some little distance away in the heart
II a wood is the rest of the farm-half
an acre this time. Here. built around
the growing trees, are cages of different
type, made of wood and perforated zinc.
and sometimes twelve feet square These
hold or inclose swarms of caterpillars
or pupae, which thrive in contented Sc
ciusion and turn out as well as any
entomologist could wish.
The farm has on hand. in dead stock,
about 100000 specimens, in sets. with
prices ranging from cents TO s35.
AS the farmer raises only British but
terfiies and moths, the prices are tenn
perate. not tropical. For the most part
the sale is by sets, however and in
these each specimen has proportional
value considerably greater than by it
self English schools and museums buy
many collections of this kind