354 MOTIONS OF INSECTS. 



which enables them to steer their course with more 

 certainty. 



The insects of this, and of every other order, except 

 the Coleoptera, fly with their bodies in a horizontal 

 position, or nearly so. As their wings are usually so 

 ample, we need not wonder tiiat the Lepidoptera are 

 excellent fliers. Indeed they seem to flit untired from 

 flower to flower and from field to field ; impelled at 

 one while by hunger, and at another by love or mater- 

 nal solicitude. — The distance to which some males will 

 fly is astonishing. That of one of the silk- worm moths 

 {Bombj/x Paphia, F.) is stated to travel sometimes 

 more than a hundred miles in this way''. — Our most beau- 

 tiful butterfly, the purple emperor (Papilio Iris, L.), 

 when he makes his first appearance fixes his throne on 

 the summit of some lofty oak, from whence in sunny 

 days, unattended by his empress, who does not fly, he 

 takes his excursions. Launching into the air from one 

 of the highest twigs, he mounts often to so great a 

 height as to become invisible. When the sun is at the 

 meridian his loftiest flights take place ; and about four 

 in the afternoon he resumes his station of repose ''. — 

 The large bodies of hawk-moths {Sphinx, F.) are car- 

 ried by wings remarkably strong both as to nervures 

 and texture, and their flight is proportionably rapid 

 and direct. That of butterflies is by dipping and rising 

 alternately, so as to form a zig-zag line with vertical 

 angles, which the animal often describes with a skip- 

 ping motion, so that each zig-zag consists of smaller 



^ Linn. Trans, vii. 40. 



'' Haworth Lepidnpt, Brit, i. !9. 



