AN ARCADIAN CALENDAR 



FLY-BY-NIGHTS 



WHEN we light our candle in the evening Daddy Long- 

 legs now comes blundering to the flame, an 

 Daddy engaging creature causing amusement by 

 Longlegs his stilt-like legs. His appearance on the 

 Autumn scene is heartily welcomed by 

 sparrows and others, including the lordly cock pheasant, 

 who cuts a ludicrous figure by eagerly darting after the 

 elusive tit-bit. If Daddy be viewed through a magnifying 

 glass, a quiet beauty is revealed in the slender, tapering 

 brown body, the gauzy wings, the exquisite antennae, 

 and the immense eyes. But it is a comical sight to see 

 the female laying her countless eggs in the grass, per- 

 forming her stilt-like dance the while. The pestilential 

 leather-jackets that hatch out become a favourite fare 

 of the rooks, who, by their destruction, earn more 

 thanks than some farmers give. 



TYPICAL moths of Autumn have none of the mid- 

 Summer glory of the red admiral butterfly, 

 In but wear Autumn's colours, in harmony 



Autumn's with the flotsam and jetsam of the Fall; 

 Livery mimicking faded leaves, and decaying wood 

 wherein they may hide for the winter. The 

 drab noctuag, which feed on ivy-blossom, are much 

 alike in their greys and browns, and, except for opal- 

 gleaming eyes at night, would easily escape notice. At 

 the fall of the leaf comes a typical Autumn moth, the 

 mottled umber, in a brown and buff dress of subdued 

 beauty. The wingless female looks more like a spider 

 than a moth as she sits on a tree-trunk, luring her late- 

 flying lovers. 



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