136 DEATH'S-HEAD HAWK-MOTH. 



ignorant and superstitious. We are told by Reau- 

 mur that they once appeared in great abundance 

 in some districts of Bretagne, and produced great 

 trepidation among the inhabitants, who considered 

 them to be the forerunners and even the cause 

 of epidemic diseases and other calamities. " A 

 letter is now before me/' says Mr. Knapp, " from 

 a correspondent in German Poland, where this 

 insect is a common creature, and so abounded 

 in 1824, that my informant collected fifty of them 

 in the potato-fields of his village, where they call 

 them the " Death's-head Phantom," the " Wan- 

 dering Death -bird," &c. The markings on its back 

 represent to these fertile imaginations the head of 

 a perfect skeleton, with the limb-bones crossed 

 beneath; its cry becomes the voice of anguish, 

 the moaning of a child, the signal of grief ; it is 

 regarded not as the creation of a benevolent being, 

 but the device of evil spirits spirits enemies to 

 man, conceived and fabricated in the dark ; the 

 very shining of its eyes is thought to represent the 

 fiery element, whence it is supposed to have pro- 

 ceeded. Flying into their apartments in the evening, 

 it at times extinguishes the light, foretelling war, 

 pestilence, hunger, death, to man and beast*." 



The sound alluded to, which seems to be peculiar 

 to this species among lepidopterous insects, has 

 often attracted the notice of observers, but they 

 have hitherto been unable to determine satisfactorily 

 in what manner it is produced. As it is impoa- 

 * Journal of a Naturalist, page 327. 



