84 



Marvels of Insect Life, 



Photo hy] 



Emperor Moth. 



[H. Main,F.E.S 



The photograph shows the male of this beautiful moth, slightly enlarged. 

 Note the abundant feathering of the antenna, which is a character of 

 this se.x. 



that makes no impression on the 

 most sensitive human nostril, take 

 advantage of this fact, and when 

 a female appears in their breeding 

 cages they take her out to a suit- 

 able locality and soon have a crowd 

 of eager males around her. It 

 does not matter that she is hidden 

 from sight, shut up perhaps in a 

 chip box ; the unsmellable odour 

 is so powerful that it pervades the 

 walls of her prison and the pocket 

 of her jailor. It is within the 

 experience of some collectors to 

 have been mobbed, as it were, by 

 male moths when they merely carried a box that had recently contained a fresh 

 female, but was now empty. Infatuated males have been known to come down a 

 chimney in the attempt to reach a female in a collector's breeding cage. 



The female lays two or three hundred large eggs, in batches around the stems of 

 the food-plant, as shown in our photograph. At first white, these eggs soon become 

 brownish-grey. The newly hatched caterpillar is black, but after casting its first 

 skin it becomes green. When full-grown it is a beautiful object, being of a bright 

 green, the segments very distinct and plump, and bearing pink or yellow warts 

 from which arise a tuft of black bristles. It feeds on heath, heather, bramble, 

 blackthorn, sallow, purple loosestrife, meadow-sweet, yellow water-lily, and other 

 plants. At the last it spins a pear-shaped cocoon of white or brown silk among 

 the branches of its food-plant, and makes preparation for the easy exit of the 

 moth by constructing the narrow end on the principle of the lobster-pot reversed. 

 This narrow end is composed of straight threads whose ends converge, so that 

 nothing can enter from without, w^hilst it opens to the slightest pressure from 



within. There are those who claim 

 that the lobster-pot must have 

 been invented by a man who had 

 examined the construction of the 

 emperor moth's cocoon. This 

 cocoon is made about the begin- 

 ning of September, and the chry- 

 salis remains in it until the follow- 

 ing April or May. In the case of 

 an Insect like the emperor cater- 

 pillar, so variable in its food- 

 plants which affect diverse situa- 

 tions in respect of their exposure 

 to light or shade, the power of 

 varying the colour of its silk 



I'ilulii IjVi 



Emperor Moth. 



LA'. HdHC 



This photograph gives a slightly enlarged view of the female. She is dis- 

 tinguished bv a paler coloration, larger size — especially of the body — and 

 by the feathering of the antennae being greatly reduced. 



