ORDER IV.—MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 191 
can travelers are constantly visiting the transatlantic coun- 
tries, and may meet with this beautiful but much maligned 
insect. 
It is a large Hawk-moth, with yellow wings variegated 
with black, and on the thorax it bears a mark which some- 
what resembles a human skull—on which account it is 
called the Dreatn’s-HEAD Hawx-mortu. It first attracted 
attention during the prevalence of a severe and fatal epi- 
demic, and of course nothing more was necessary than its 
appearance at such a time to induce an ignorant people to 
believe it the veritable prophet and forerunner of death. 
A curate in Bretagne, France, made a most horrible and 
fear-exciting description of this animal, describing the very 
loud and dreadful sound which it emitted as a sort of lam- 
entation for the awful calamity which was coming on the 
earth. 
This is but another proof that, were the great mass of the 
people better educated in Entomology, they would escape 
much imposition, and avoid much imaginary suffering, and 
much real but unnecessary fear of the harmless creatures 
around them. This moth has no mouth to bite with, and 
is no more injurious to vegetation than the others of its 
species. ‘The sound it produces is very much like that 
made by mice, but has a more pitiful tone, and is much 
louder, if you put it in a box or hold it between your fin- 
gers, Any one may determine the origin of the sound, 
however, by uncoiling its proboscis and stretching it out 
with a pin, when all sound ceases at once; but let the ani- 
mal coil up its proboscis again, and it immediately com- 
mences rubbing it against the glassy membrane beneath it, 
and the sound begins again. 
The caterpillar of this moth, when full grown, is about 
four inches long, of a yellowish color with black spots, and 
oblique green stripes upon each side, and is found princi- 
pally, in the month of July, in England on the jasmine; in 
