MOTHS AND MOTH-CATCHERS. 249 



popular interest in the study should be neglected ; therefore I hope 

 that pretty English names for our moths will appear and lighten the 

 studies of many who find Latin difficult and ugly. It must be remem- 

 bered, however, that when we wish to designate a certain kind of moth 

 with precision, we are obliged to fall back upon the Latin name, and 

 that there is a good deal of prejudice against common names by scien- 

 tists, whose opinions are worthy of respect, but whose foible it is to be 

 very exact and precise in their statements about a moth, or any object 

 upon which they have special information, but who are otherwise as 

 fallible as the rest of us when it comes to matters of conduct and art. 



The old saying in natural history, that everything comes from an 

 egg, holds good for moths. Nevertheless, modern science has wrought 

 wonderful changes in our ideas on this subject since the days of Ray 

 and Willoughby. The young are now considered as part and parcel of 

 the old a continuation, to some extent, of the bodies of their parents, 

 whether we consider a moth or a man. The affinity between the seed 

 of a plant and the egg of an animal is indeed illusory, but in some of 

 the lower animals there is a process of reproduction allied to budding 

 in plants. Years ago the poet Chamisso discovered the fact that the 

 young of a lowly organized marine animal called Salpa did not resemble 

 their parents. We know now that in some cases several generations in- 

 tervene before the final form of the species is assumed. When we read 

 of the discoveries in biology of Goethe and Chamisso, we see that 

 there is some justice in the observation that it is the poet who under- 

 stands Nature best. Perhaps we should rather conclude that the im- 

 agination is a quality which the naturalist can by no means dispense 

 with. Goethe's theory of the true structure of the vertebrate skull is 

 now accepted ; Chamisso died before Steenstrup, in 1824, vindicated 

 at least the general truth of his particular observations. A curious 

 story is told of the first discoverer of the true nature of the coral- 

 makers. The French Academy of Sciences would not print his essay 

 on the subject, and persisted in the old belief that the coral was a 

 plant. 



To return to our moth-eggs. While certain flies reproduce by a sort 

 of budding in the larval state, our moths, so far as known, all come 

 from eggs laid by the female moth on leaves, flowers, or the branches 

 and trunks of trees. Some are inserted in crevices of the wood itself, 

 and the little caterpillars, when they hatch, bore into the heart of the 

 tree upon which they feed. The " peach-borer " (JEgeria exitiosa) 

 and the " plum-borer " (JEgeria pietipes), Bailey's " goat-moth " ( Cos- 

 sus centerensis) are examples of certain kinds of wood-eating cater- 

 pillars. The little moth-eggs, usually attached singly, sometimes in 

 belts and clusters, vary in the length of time which elapses before they 

 hatch after they are laid. It is difficult to assert that there is any rule 

 in this respect, and it is certainly hard to tell when they are "addled." 

 When they are " bad" and fail to give the little worm, it is often be- 



