424 INSECTS AT HOME. 



ment be made, and, in the same mysterious manner, the Motl 

 is again hovering in front of the flowers. Presently, it selects 

 one of them, and, poising itself within an inch or so of the 

 blossom, its body becomes visible, while its rapidly vibrating 

 wings look like two grey patches of mist on the sides of the 

 motionless body. Presently, a wonderfully long and slender 

 tongue is thrust from the head, plunged deeply into the re- 

 cesses of the flower, and, thus suspended in mid-air, the insect 

 takes its sweet repast. It is a very remarkable fact that the 

 Humming-birds themselves feed in precisely the same manner- 



Indeed, the whole bearing of this insect, including the ec^nd 

 made by its wings, so closely resembles that of the bird, that 

 many persons who have lived in those parts of the world which 

 are favoured by the presence of the Humming-birds, have been 

 so comj)letely deceived by the Moth that they have written 

 letters to newspapers and scientific journals, asserting that 

 humming-birds have at last made their way even to England. 

 There is no better proof of the wonderful resemblance between 

 the bird and the moth than that persons who have been long 

 familiar with the former should mistake the latter for it, and 

 should, moreover, be filled with indignation when practical 

 entomologists ventured to assert that the creature in question 

 was a moth, and not a bird. 



The boldness of this Moth is as remarkable as its wariness. 

 It really seems to place such confidence in its magnificent 

 powers of flight that it despises danger. Let a Humming-bird 

 Moth take a fancy to a particular flower, and it will be almost 

 impossible to keep it from that flower. Time after time it may 

 be driven away, for, as I have already mentioned, even the 

 lifting of a hand will startle it. But it continually returns to 

 the same flower, and, sooner or later, takes its fill of the sweet 

 juices. There is scarcely a year wherein this Moth does not 

 find a place in the newspapers under some title or other, some 

 of them not a little ludicrous. Eesidents in the East Indies 

 may well be pardoned for thinking the Moth to be a veritable 

 humming-bird, but it is not so easy to see why so many persons 

 should assert that it is the locust of Scripture, should mention 

 it under that name to the daily journals, and should answer 

 with contumelious epithets the letters of entomologists who 



