CLEAR-WINGED MOTHS. 321 



place of shelter to wliicli she often resorts from the bleak winds 

 of March, or the early frosts of late October ; for our little 

 " Twenty Plume/' fragile as she looks, is no mere bird of 

 summer. 



Having made allusion to certain moths wherein are altogether 

 wanting those merely ornamental appendages, the coloured 

 scales or feathers which usually clothe the wings of their tribe, 

 we must say a little more about them ; though that little will 

 here be somewhat out of place, inasmuch as the few " clear- 

 winged '' belong more nearly, by habits and other affinities, to 

 the Hawk and Twilight Moths first discoursed of, than to the 

 nocturnal division from which our subjects have been sub- 

 sequently drawn. 



Towards the end of May there may be seen, sipping honey 

 on the wing, (chiefly, however, in the woods and gardens of 

 Surrey, Kent, and Essex,) an insect with a short, robust, yel- 

 lowish-olive body, not very dissimilar to that of a drone bee, 

 except that it is distinguished by some terminating rings of 

 deep red, finished at the extremity by a black and yellow tuft. 

 From its clear, transparent, brown-bordered wings, none but 

 the " initiate " would take it for other than a curious sort of 

 fly or bee, whereas it is in fact the "Bee Hawk-moth/'* one of 

 those above alluded to. Of another family,f but resembling 

 the last in naked transparency of pinion, there is the " See 

 Clear-wing," which, in the heat of noonday, is accustomed 



* Sesia fusiform is. t That of Mgeridee. 



