LEPIDOPTERA IN RELATION TO FLOWERS. 357 



Bee, but a not inconsiderable portion falls to the share of insects 

 belonging to the order Lepidoptera. Certain genera of plants, 

 like Lychnis and Lonicera, have advanced even beyond the Bee; 

 and the long proboscis of the Butterflies and Moths comes into 

 play. Had Sir John Lubbock been a lepidopterist, he would 

 never have set down the species of Lepidoptera visiting the Rag- 

 wort as three in number, nor would he have passed over the Ivy 

 with a reference to Flies and Wasps. It is a matter for regret 

 that lepidopterists, as a rule, have paid little or no attention to 

 this subject. They have been too busy with the great problems of 

 variation and distribution to think of others. In giving lists of 

 species captured, they will note the geological and geographical 

 features of a district, as well as its characteristic plants, but they 

 seldom tell us what flowers they found to be frequented by 

 insects, far less do they give us a list of the species frequenting 

 each flower. When I say this, I of course exclude the working of 

 the Sallow and Ivy blossoms, which every lepidopterist tries at 

 one time or another during the course of his life. Beyond these 

 two, if the plants are mentioned at all, the reference is usually 

 indefinite. In going over some volumes of the Entomologist 

 recently, I found a very interesting list of species which had 

 been taken at the flowers of "a kind of vetch," and a still more 

 remarkable list of Moths captured at the flowers of "various 

 grasses." I fancy it would have interested most naturalists to 

 know what grasses, so universally set down as wind-fertilised, 

 have the power of attracting insects, and w^hat species of Moths 

 were attracted to each particular grass. 



Nearly all the great insect orders have their representatives 

 among the winged battalions of the evening and night. It is 

 then that the great Water Beetles, and the still more noisy Dung 

 Beetles, go booming through the air. Over the ponds the Caddis - 

 flies keep up, hour after hour, their endless serpentine dance, 

 and the whole atmosphere is thick with Gnats, Midges, and other 

 two-winged flies. The night-flying species which are attracted to 

 flowers belong almost entirely to the Lepidoptera, but there may 

 be exceptions. Sir ex gigas, Linn., has been known to occur at 

 ''sugar," and most insects which go to "sugar" will also go to 

 flowers. The reverse hardly holds good. It is, then, with the 

 Moths that I have to deal in this paper. 



