88 



food plant. It is very marked, fur instance, in Hipp. Hyperantlnis, whose eggs 

 rebound with ahnost perfect elasticity. 



Now and then a female moth flie.s along in a wilder manner, dashes against 

 or, at least, appears to collide with one of the hovering males, and with the 

 momentum of her jjrevious flight, passes forward perhaps as much as several 

 feet, and settles on the grass. The male moth so challenged follows almost 

 simultaneously. I observed this occurrence sufficiently frequently to make it 

 certain that this is the manner in which, in Hepialus Ilumuli, individuals of 

 opposite sexes find each other. On one occasion I had halfa-duzen male Humuli in 

 view ; a female came up with a dasli to a male, within two yai'ds of where I stood, 

 but passed by within three or four inches of him without attracting (or appar- 

 ently, on second thoughts, desiring to attract) his attention. Then she went in a 

 precisely similar way at another male three or four yards further on, and then to 

 one side where two male moths were hovering close together. One of these 

 happened to be a very diminutive sjpecimen, but this one she touched, and they 

 settled down immediately in the usual manner. It was obvious in this case that 

 the female was making a deliberate selection, and it occurred to me that the two 

 males hovering together had deceived her into believing that they were one fine 

 large specimen. What her views may really have been I do not, of course, know ; 

 but it seemed that in the result her selection was not a good one. Small males 

 may have found it pay to thus join company with another specimen and exhibit 

 a more brillant and attractive mark. 



When the twenty minutes of light suitable for exhibiting his silvery coat 

 has elapsed, any male under observation may be seen to flutter down into^the 

 grass, close his wings, and creep down to tlie roots to hide till the next period of 

 flight ; and at the end of the minute or two spent in watching his movements it 

 is found that only an odd male or two remains on the wing, and these immediately 

 disappear. The increasing darkness renders it impossible to say certainly 

 whether all the females, which are much less conspicuous on the wing, act in 

 the same manner. I do not know whether a second flight takes place during the 

 morning hours. 



There can be no doubt, therefore, that in this species we have a reversal of 

 the habit usual among moths, as in other classes of animals — the male being 

 found by the female instead of the contrary, and that the peculiar colouring and 

 flight of the male have special reference to this habit. It is curious that in the 

 Hepialidie the Antennae are very feebly developed, whilst they are very largely 

 developed in the males of those species, that are known as " sembling " freely — 

 ' ' sembling " being a method of capturing male moths by the attraction of a 

 newly emerged female ; and it has been supposed that the Antennae in this case 

 are the organs of a sense analagous to smell. It is clear that the males of 

 Humuli have no need of such a sense. But I hear of an European species of 

 Hepialus of which the males do actually " semble." Whilst Mr. Barrett's 

 observations on Hectus tend to show that though, in that species, the female 

 finds the male much as in Humuli, she is guided not by the shining silver of her 

 mate, but by a rich pine apple like odour evolved by the male moth. 



