i6o 



SUMMER 



dances over the grass stems where their golden mates sit 

 hidden. 



This dance of the ghost swifts is one of the most ecstatic 

 of all flights. No bird and no other insect combines so 

 intense a movement with so marked a rhythm. While the 



moth's wings whir with such 

 rapidity that it is a mere 

 nebula in the twilight, it flings 

 itself backwards and forwards 

 on a track a yard or so wide 

 like the weight on the pen- 

 dulum of a clock. A pasture 

 or hay-field after dusk at mid- 

 summer may be covered by 

 dozens of these large white 

 moths absorbed in their pas- 

 sionate exercise. It gives an 

 intense sense of the vitality 

 pulsing in the earth at this 

 midsummer season. The 

 dance seems intensely ex- 

 hausting, even for a moth 

 with such long and powerful 

 wings. After each bout of 

 frenzy, lasting for one or two 

 minutes, the dancer rests on 

 a grass-stem, looking a little denser a d whiter than the 

 surrounding clover flowers. 



The analogy of the displays of birds suggests that the 

 exhibition of speed and glittering whiteness is designed to 

 win the admiration of the female moth. Certainly she is 

 often to be found resting in the grasses over which the male 

 moths dance ; but it is hard to be sure in the dusk whether 



WHITE CAMPION 



