SPHINGID.E. 19 



other plants, and has been known to take so kindly to nettle 

 as to refuse to leave it for potato, when supplied. Also found 

 feeding, naturally, on Lycium harharum (tee-tree), jasmine, 

 Solanum dulcamara (woody nightshade), and even on snow- 

 berry, dogwood, spindle, and various other plants. 



Pupa of large size, smooth, thin skinned, dark purple 

 brown, rounded and without excrescences, but with the 

 spiracles very distinct ; anal segment terminated by a spike. 

 SubteiTanean, preferring to bury itself to a considerable 

 depth (eight or ten inches), forming a large chamber of the 

 soil and a gummy secretion, and smoothing it very carefully 

 inside. Frequently found in the potato fields when the 

 tubers are dug up in the autumn, but from its delicacy of 

 skin, very frequently injured, and, after such disturbance, 

 rather difficult to rear. This difliculty is so great in the case 

 of those which do not produce the moth in the autumn, that 

 it is usual to force them out in the winter, by keeping them 

 in a warm room, or even near a fire, always covered with 

 moss or other porous material which is kept constantly wet. 

 Without these precautions dug-up pupee almost invariably die. 



This moth is in several respects a most remarkable species — 

 from its large size and bulk of body, and from the singular 

 figure of a human skull which it bears on the back of its 

 thorax, but still more from the fact that it has a voice, a 

 curious shrill squeak resembling the cry of a mouse, which 

 sound is readily produced by some individuals whenever 

 touched or disturbed, though others cannot be induced to 

 make it at all. The origin of this sound does not seem to 

 have ever been satisfactorily ascertained. It has been 

 attributed to friction of the thorax against the first segment 

 of the abdomen, in the manner of the longicorn beetles ; and 

 to the forcing of air, by constriction of the abdominal seg- 

 ments, through the the thorax and head, and through minute 

 apertures in the tongue or trunk ; and it is said that bubbles 

 have been seen upon the tongue when the moth had been 



