232 SrHINGID.^ — HAWK-MOTHS. 



curious comparison: "The worms, after tlie manner of the 

 brides in Holland, shut themselves up for a time, as it were 

 to prepare, and render themselves more amiable, when they 

 are to meet the other sex in the field of Hymen. "^ 



Sphingidae — Hawk-moths. 



To the superstitious imaginations of the Europeans, the 

 conspicuous markings on the back of a large evening moth, 

 the Sphinx Atropos, represent the human skull, with the 

 thigh-bones crossed beneath ; hence is it called the Death's- 

 head Moth, the Death's-head Fhojitom, the Wandering 

 Death-bird, etc. Its cry,^ which closely resembles the noise 

 caused by the creaking of cork, or the plaintive squeaking 

 of a mouse, certainly more than enough to frighten the 

 ignorant and superstitious, is considered the voice of anguish, 

 the moaning of a child, the signal of grief; and it is regarded 

 "not as the creation of a benevolent being, but as the device 



1 Hist, of Ins., p. 3. 



2 Reaumur considers this cry to be produced by the friction of the 

 palpi against the proboscis [Memoires, ii. 293). Huber, but without 

 mentioning the particulars, says he has ascertained that Reaumur 

 was quite mistaken [On Bees, p. 313, note), Schroeter ascribes the 

 sound to the rubbing of the tongue against the head; and Rosel to 

 the friction of the chest upon the abdomen, M. de Johet tliinks it 

 is produced by the air being suddenly propelled against these scales 

 by the action of the wings. M. Lori-y states that the sound arises 

 from the air escaping rapidly through peculiar cavities communica- 

 ting with the spiracles, and furnished with a fine tuft of hairs on the 

 sides of the abdomen (Cuv. An. Kingd. — Ins., ii. G78). Mr. E. L. 

 Layard seems to be of the same opinion (Tennent's Nat. Hist, of 

 Ceylon, -p. 427). But M. Passerini, curator of the Museum of Nat. 

 Hist, at Florence, has lately investigated the subject more minutely. 

 He traced the origin of the sound to the interior of the head, in 

 which he discovered a cavity at the passage where muscles are placed 

 for impelling and expelling the air. M. Dumeril has since discovered 

 a sort of membrane stretched over this cavity, like, as he says, to the 

 head of a drum. M. Duponchel has also confirmed by experimeut 

 the opinions of Passerini and Dumeril, and confutes Lorry, whose 

 notion was generally adopted, by stating that the noise is produced 

 from the head when the body of the insect is removed [Annates dcs 

 Sci. Nat, Mars., 1828). 



1 



