Tying out, and wild-collecting of cocoons. You can always photograph them and release the extras, or you can give them to people, share them at school........ or any number of things! Releasing is usually BEST, and it's best to take them into the country before doing so - assuming you live in the city - otherwise many of your moths will spend their entire short lives sitting by a light somewhere until a bird swoops down in the early morning light and gets them! Of course this little trick can only be done with NATIVE species! Foriegn species wouldn't stand a chance here in the wild....... and if they did, just the opposite might become true....... they may take over the place like the Gypsy moth did, and I well remember the days I spent in Eastern Pennsylvania a number of years ago when practically every tree was bare............ and this was in July! The caterpillars must have numbered in the MILLIONS in that area and did untold damage......... all because a "non-native" species was introduced here! Speaking of the "wild", an easy way to get a few cocoons is to go looking for them! This is a fun winter hobby, and will add some "fresh blood" to your breeding stock! Wait till the trees are bare, and go looking early in the late fall/winter (before the cocoons get destroyed by hungry animals!), and after several weeks of looking, you'll be amazed how your moths are not extinct yet! You will find very little in the way of cocoons........ and most of them will be either hatched or dead! Anyways the following is a list of "hot" habitats to find them in, and in no particular order, you'll find them in: Wet ditches with a lot of small willow trees - Here you will have your best chances of finding Polyphemus and Cecropia. Remember first and foremost that nearly ALL cocoons are heavily-hidden by the leaves the larvae use as "support" at spinning-time, and to spot a bare cocoon without any leaves around it is probably a DEAD (or empty) cocoon........ so keep this in mind if you see a "bare" cocoon hanging from a branch 30 feet up in the air! Look for your "Polys" out near the tips of the branches (or new live twigs is more like it!), with a few leaves surrounding them, and are most abundant on the lower twigs near the ground. Cecropias are found here too, but your best place to find Cecropia is near (or directly ON) the trunk of the smaller trees, often very well-hid among the stalks of dead grass and weeds growing right next to the trunk. Red-twig Dogwood is another good place to look (and they're usually growing near the willow ditch), as well as Honeysuckle bushes. Look directly down into the center of the bush, even near the ground, and I've found them in rows of Privet hedge and Lilac bushes that have been planted near Maple, Walnut, and Apple trees - again doing a careful search deep inside the bush. After a few are found, it's easy to develop an eye for spotting them.............. and you'll soon find yourself looking in all sorts of places! Cranberrybush Viburnum bushes are another good place to look for Cecropia, as well as small Wild Cherry trees, and again look closely NEAR THE GROUND, even right down where the grass and other native vegetation surrounds the trunk. Use great care when removing the cocoons from their support, as one wrong twist can crush the pupa within! Another good place to score a big, fat, live Cecropia is around a old small building, in a woods or orchard. look for them under loose shingles, etc, on about any part of the structure. Along country roadsides - Here collecting by car is a fun and easy way to spend a lazy winter afternoon! Select roads that are not used too much, and thankfully the trees you want to look at will be the ones right by the road! As you approach a line of roadside trees, slow way down and look for Promethea cocoons hanging very visibly from branches of such plants as Wild Black Cherry, Ash, and Sassafras, and again if you pass a ditch, keep a sharp eye out for Polyphemus and Cecropia. Also both Polys and Cecropia can be readily found on any of the white-trunked Birch species.