Muth and Muth Feet

Crumby, that muth is over here above the sink on the house ivy. Take it's picture.

All righty then.

Be careful Crumby. Use a stool.

All righty then.

What kind of muth is it?

All righty then.

Will it eat our clothes?

All righty then.

Did you get a picture of it yet?

All righty then.

Muth. I know that Crumby is gonna kill me and key me out. Why'd I come in here?

muth feet.

I am thinking about killing that muth and keying it out. To key it out, I need to look at its back and possibly its dang feet and its antennae under a microscope. But then I am also thinking about not killing that muth and waiting for it to die on its own. I am also thinking about taking it outside, but I suspect its caterpillar is a no account. So probably I'll just wait for it to die on its own.

Achtung! If you can't wait around for muths to come in your house and die, you can go Sugaring for Muths, which happens to be the title of a highly informative chapter in W.J. Holland's book, The Muth Book, 1903. I shall quote,

We have put into the bucket four pounds of cheap sugar. Now we will pour in a bottle of stale beer and a little rum. We have stirred the mixture well. In our pockets are our cyanide jars.

Further along,

The task is accomplished! Forty trees and ten stumps have been baptized with sugar-sweetened beer. Let us wash our fingers in the brook and dry them with our handkerchiefs. Let us sit down on the grass beneath this tree and puff a good Havana.

And some more,

Now let us light our lamps and put a drop or two of chloroform into our cyanide jars, just enough to slightly dampen the paper which holds the lumps of cyanide in place.

Ah yes. Those were the days when real men were entomologists and vice versa. Out at night with cigars and handkerchiefs, cyanide and chloroform, all handily available from the corner drug store, for sugaring for muths. Reckon what they did with the rest of the rum? Apparently, in those days, some sugar could be had cheaply, comparitively.