MOTHS AND MOTH-CATCHERS. 377 



It sanctions the most exalted ethical ideals, such as the choicest minds 

 have conceived. It is a judgment-power, because it permits only that 

 which is right and perfect to endure, and lets the unjust, the base, and 

 the evil perish. 



The knowledge that this world-power supports virtue, and con- 

 tributes its part in elevating the moral nature, will inspire the moralist 

 in his efforts in behalf of the good, and in his contention against the 

 bad. But we must be careful not to mistake the true significance of 

 this law. There is arising in the newer evolutionist literature a kind of 

 fatalist optimism or optimistic fatalism, the effects of which may be no 

 less disastrous than those of an undiscriminating pessimism. If natu- 

 ral selection is to select the good, then the good must already be there. 

 It does not contradict this principle, that the human race will die out 

 as other species have died out ; but it follows directly from the prin- 

 ciple that the race must die out if it becomes bad. Not without us, but 

 through us, through our volition, conscious of that purpose, will the 

 continuous development go on. In our day, says Salter, in his " Re- 

 ligion of Morals," evolution is sometimes regarded as if it was some- 

 thing outside of us and above us, and we had only to wait on its 

 motion. But evolution operates through you and me. It is only an 

 abstract name for the course which your energy and mine and that of 

 other beings take. It is for better or for worse, according as we are 

 better or worse. It goes on rapidly or creeps along painfully, accord- 

 ing as our thoughts are quick or slow and dead. It is not enough to 

 perceive that the bad will at last perish and the good persist. We 

 must wish it to be the good that will triumph. It is still true that the 

 sources of history are in us. The result of these considerations must 

 be a heightening of the feeling of responsibility. Translated for the 

 Popular Science Monthly from the Deutsche Rundschau. 



-++*- 



MOTHS AND MOTH-CATCHERS. 



By AUGUSTUS E. GEOTE, A. M. 



IT. 



TO understand the way in which our North American moths are 

 distributed (and by North American we mean the territory north 

 of Mexico and the West Indies), we must study the physical geogra- 

 phy of the continent. There is a perfect host of species and individu- 

 als, which depend on special kinds of plants, for the most part, and 

 their diffusion is, of course, limited by the area of the plant upon which 

 their caterpillars subsist. But the greater bulk of the species are not 

 confined in their young stage to one sort of plant, while, from their 

 activity, these flying flowers, the moths, range farther than the more 

 slowly traveling blossoms whose honey they extract. 



