INSECT VARIETY. 79 



gloom-frequenting Cave Beetles, and in nocturnal moths phos- 

 phorescent, are then uniformly sensitive to light and its sj^ectral 

 elements. Most species move towards an excess of luminosity ; 

 some become torpid on its withdrawal, or are lucifugal ; a 

 majority are drawn by colour. Whether or not coloured objects 

 might be employed with success as a means of ensnaring speci- 

 mens does not appear; but it is at least certain chi-omatic 

 attraction enters into the economy of the species, of which 

 examples in nature from time to time occur. Some kinds 

 associate colour with the taste afforded by their habitual nourish- 

 ment. W6 sometimes notice the Humming-bird Moth and 

 Drone Fly abscond from garden-flowers when the sun shines, 

 to probe red or purple dabs on wall-paper in our sitting-rooms, 

 which are likewise occasionally visited by the Blue Meat Fly, 

 in mistake for carrion. An ingenious analysis of this attraction 

 was afforded by Sir John Lubbock, who, on baiting paper slips 

 of various colours with honey, and then shifting them, dis- 

 covered certain bees he had marked invariably returned to the 

 tint they previously selected. But besides an indication of 

 food, insects regard colour as a call to reproduction, or an in- 

 centive to battle. Female Dragon-flies whose males are blue 

 have been kno\vn to collect around a blue flshiug-float ; or the 

 males of the little Meadow Butterflies [Polyommatus Alexis) to 

 fight a piece of paper of that hue. So, also, a piece of glowing 

 rose-paper has attracted the Brimstone Butterfly, a piece of 

 green paper the Small White, and an umbrella-top a Wood Fri- 

 tillary, where it may be remarked that one butterfly has orange 

 spots and produces a red variety, and another possesses silvery spots. 

 Fear is also intimately connected with colourisation, and butter- 

 flies and moths with rich white or red wings are those especially 

 where we find alarm produces paralysis, instead of stimulating 

 escape. In the moths this becomes marked in Tiger Moths, 

 _ Ermines, and others, comprising the families Zygsenidae, Che- 

 lonidse, and Platypterigidae ; and even the small white-speckled 

 hedge Hi/[JOuo)iieuta, when we near a pill-box to the grass 

 blade where they so indolently sit, suddenly conceive fear of 

 discovery, and, contracting their members, droj^ among the roots 

 and tangle, a proceeding where gravity is not a little abetted 

 by a Avedge or arrowy form. And thus, in the case of insect- 



