A MOTH LIKE A HUMMING-BIRD 111 
sucking up the nectar of the flower, which is what it 
lives on. That moth is the humming-bird hawk- 
moth, and, if you have seen it, you have seen what 
looks more like a Humming-bird than anything else 
in England. It hovers over or under or in front of a 
flower, as the Humming-birds do, it keeps moving 
its wings in the same rapid way as they move theirs, 
and making the same humming noise with them, and 
it puts a long, slender, little brown thing, that looks 
something like the beak of a Humming-bird, right 
down into the flower, and sucks up the nectar that is 
in it, which is just what a Humming-bird does. So 
if the humming-bird moth were bright and gleaming, 
as Humming-birds—sunbeams—are, it would seem to 
be a Humming-bird and not a moth at all. But you 
must not think that it really would be one. Oh no, 
it never could be, because it is an insect, and an insect 
is a very different thing to a bird. 
The humming-bird moth and the Humming- 
bird look like each other because they live in the 
same way and do the same things. They both 
fly, so they both have wings ; and they both sip nectar, 
so they both have a long thing to stick into the 
flowers and suck it up with: so they look like each 
other, but they are not a bit the same. A petti- 
coat, you know, looks a little like an upper skirt, 
for they both have to be worn round the waist, 
