

DEILEPH1LA EUPHORBIA. 371 



Gentle Reader, — We have very unintentionally introduced 

 an episode but little connected with our subject ; we crave thy 

 pardon, and proceed. When June, with his bitter blasts and 

 drenching rains, has sodden the immense sand-hills of Braunton 

 Burrows, 3 and the few intervals of sunshine have warmed the 

 surface of the reeking sand, the beautiful moths represented in 

 the Plate b awaken from a winter's slumber, shake off the grave- 

 clothes which had shrouded them, and emerge from the waste 

 of sand like unquiet ghosts deserting their abode in the tombs. 

 On their first appearance the wings are small, clumsy, shapeless 

 appendages, and are more soft and yielding than the lightest 

 silk that undulates with a breath. The newly-born moth, in 

 this state, crawls along the sand till it espies a solitary bent, a 

 stick, a stone, or, better than all, the stem of its favourite 

 plant, Euphorbia Paralias ; either of these objects it ascends, 

 till it has found firm footing in a vertical position ; it then 

 remains stationary, allowing its wings opportunity to expand 

 and strengthen as they droop behind it. In this position it is 

 most beautiful to observe the shivering pulsatory motion by 

 which the blood seems to be forced into its newly-developed 

 channels, — to watch the gradual expansion of the wing, until 

 it has attained its full dimensions, — to mark the satisfied quiet 

 that follows this expansion, while the wings hang side by side, 

 and closely touching behind its back, like those of a butterfly 

 at rest. In half an hour the wings are brought forward, and 

 assume their usual position. 



When the sun has been gone for about half an hour below 

 the horizon, the whole tribe of moths begin to quit their diurnal 

 shelter, and venture on the wing. It is then that our beautiful 

 Deilephila first essays his newly-acquired powers of flight, and 

 skims rapidly and in circles over the various branches of spurge 

 which are scattered about the surrounding waste ; here he 

 finds a virgin-bride, like himself the child of the departed day. 

 Next comes the laying of eggs ; these, when first produced, 

 are covered with an adhesive, gummy substance, which enables 

 the female to stick them on the small leaves of the spurge, as 

 represented in Plate IX. In a fortnight these eggs hatch, and 

 produce little black caterpillars, four of which are represented 



* Near Barnstaple, in Devonshire. 



b Plate VIII. The middle figure represents the male, the lower the female, 

 and ilk 1 upper figure the under side of the insect. 



