86 



post again. Sometimes one of the same species, after having had this amicable tussle, 

 would likewise take a stand on a neighbouring spot, and after a few minutes both would 

 simultaneously rush to the conflict, like knights at a tournament, wheel and roll about 

 as before, and each return to his own place with the utmost precision, and presently 

 renew the combat with the same result, for very many times in succession. — p. 246. 



As autumn advances the humming-bird hawk-moths make their ap- 

 pearance on the wing, and as we might expect, their evolutions are 

 watched with great interest by our Canadian entomologist. 



" C. — I have found the blossoms of the milk-weed (Asclepias) very productive of 

 lepidopterous insects. The large zebra hawk-moths have been very numerous : I 

 caught on one evening eight, and on another seven of them, and saw many more. — 

 What a very striking resemblance exists between these hawk -moths and the humming- 

 birds ! Their straight arrowy flight, their sudden arrest in front of a flower, the rapid 

 vibration of their wings, the insertion of their long tongue, the glancing of their bright 

 eyes, their loud hum, their jealous alarms, and even the shape of their bodies, and their 

 size, are so exactly a counterpart of the ruby-throat, that at first one is tempted to think 

 it is actually a humming-bird protracting his nectar-seeking excursions into the night. 

 Among these flowers, almost immediately after sunset, we hear a loud humming, and 

 looking to the spot, see the large moth suspended on the wing in front of a blossom ; 

 presently one is seen in another direction ; then another, and another ; and the small 

 moths begin to swarm, and hurry from flower to flower, seeming to increase with the 

 increasing darkness, until the eye fails to follow them, but still dimly sees the swift- 

 winged hawk-moth, directed by the more acute perception of the ear. They are large 

 and thick, though of a graceful shape, and possess considerable muscular strength ; I 

 have had them actually within my fingers, yet have failed to hold them, as they have 

 forced their way out by the mere strength of their wings. On almost every one that I 

 caught, there were little, soft, club-shaped filaments, about one-sixth of an inch long, 

 projecting from the head, generally from the eyes : do you know what they are ? 



" F. — They are parts of the milk-weed blossom, which adhere to the head of the 

 insect, when eagerly sucking the nectar, and come away with it. I was much at a loss 

 myself when I first observed them, but having seen the same substances, in the south, 

 attached to the heads of swallow-tailed butterflies, which I had taken in the act of 

 sucking an allied species, the orange milk-weed (Asclepias incarnata), I had no longer 

 any doubt of their origin. They are the little bags of pollen that I mentioned before, 

 which are found within the anthers." — p. 258. 



The circumstance of the club-shaped filaments projecting from the 

 head of these divunal moths, has not escaped my own observ^ation ; I 

 have noticed it in Macroglossa stellatarum, and still more frequently 

 in some species of bees, — Anthophora retusa and Saropoda vulpina. 

 The filaments, in these instances, appear to have been the pollen- 

 masses of orchideous flowers. The E-ev. G. E. Smith has described 

 the remarkable structure of these pollen-masses, and alluded to the 

 circumstance of their adhesion to the heads of insects, in the follow- 

 ing passage. 



