MOTHS AS SLEEPERS. 325 



Those who are in the habit of ever thinking at all about 

 things not present to their sight, may sometimes wonder what 

 has become, in broad daylight, of the numerous moths which 

 they may have seen flitting in the warm twilight of the evening 

 before. A good number of them will never so flit again 

 (unless in the shape of ghosts), because, in fulfilment of their 

 being's end, their bodies have served to pack the craw of some 

 rapacious dor-hawk, or bat, or fern-owl; but the more for- 

 tunate survivors making to themselves a night in noon-day 

 are to be found on the gloomy north of trunks of trees, or 

 beneath their leafy coverts, enwrapped in what appears to us 

 like slumber ; their wings overlapping, very rarely, like 

 the butterfly' s, erectly folded; their antennae curiously curled. 

 Sometimes, as if in veritable sleep, they will fall from their 

 green couches like a shower of blossoms, when the bough they 

 occupy is shaken. Of this the little green moths of the oak 

 have been adduced as a familiar instance; but others, as 

 though their open-eyed repose were lighter or more fictitious 

 than any cattish slumber, will fly off alert and active on the 

 flutter of a bird, the sound of a foot-fall, or the rustle 

 of a leaf. 



With regard to one habit, that of feeding, our faineant 

 flutterers widely differ. We have given a notion of the 

 luxurious labours, in this way, of the honey-sipping " hawks y ' 

 and sphinxes ; and we have seen a Y moth suck sugar for two 

 hours on a stretch, dissolving it from the lump by a liquid let 



