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faded autumn leaf. I remember once seeing a large red under- 

 wing moth fly across a lawn ; whilst on the wing he seemed a 

 mass of brilliant red and white ; distinctly seeing him ahght on 

 the trunk of a birch tree I ran up to it, keeping my eyes fixed 

 on the spot all the time, but on my arrival he appeared to have 

 mysteriously vanished. I put my face within twelve inches of 

 the trunk and searched it most minutely, but in vain ; a few ants 

 crawling up it were all I could discover, when, turning away in 

 disgust, I fancied I saw a bit of the birch bark move shghtly 

 upwards ; this bit of birch turned out to be the moth, an insect 

 measuring three inches from tip to tip of wing. The lower 

 wings are white, with scarlet and black bands ; the upper wings, 

 which when at rest entirely cover and conceal the others, are a 

 mottled grey, the colour of birch bark. Again, another case 

 comes to my memory. On any fine day in June I can show you 

 in Delamere Forest a number of small birch trees not more than 

 six or seven feet high ; you shall stare at them for five minutes, 

 and see nothing but shining gieen leaves dancing in the sunlight, 

 but amongst these green leaves I can see a dozen green butter- 

 flies, the exact size of the leaves, flirting themselves about, and 

 strutting and promenading like fantaU pigeons. I have found 

 them in the same spot for many years in succession. "When you 

 blow a " lady clock" or dandelion head covered with seeds, " to 

 see what o'clock it is," a number of little sUken plumes float 

 away on the wind. Similar plumes are blown from the tops of 

 thistles, they are the seeds of the thistle, borne away by the 

 wind. There is a little moth called the twenty-plume moth, 

 because its wings are unlike other moths, being broken up into 

 twenty separate plumes ; this moth closely resembles, and is 

 just the size of, the thistle seeds referred to. The Duke of 

 Argyle says that he has watched this moth feed on the flowers 

 of the thistle, and then, when a gust of wind has come, allow 

 itself to be borne away on the wind along with the seeds, but, 

 instead of falling to the ground, adroitly aHghting on other 

 flower heads, and proceeding with its feast. 



He argues that this is done to escape detection by insect feed- 

 ing birds. This may be, and probably is, the case ; but, on the 

 other hand, if there are any goldfinches or other birds in the 

 neighbourhood that feed on thistle seeds, the moth's device 

 will certainly bring about its own destruction, as the goldfinch 

 devours insects also. I have never seen the twenty-plume on 

 flowers, but only fluttering like a fly or a gnat against windows ; 

 it has a habit of frequenting outhouses ; but I have noticed that 

 a number of the large white-plume moths, when on the wing, 

 look just like snow flakes, so lightly do they fall through the air. 

 The eggs of the cuckoo are very variable in coloiu-, and are said 

 to greatly approximate to the colour of the eggs already in the 



