COLLECTING. 101 



Sphingides or hawk-moths may be quoted as examples ; 

 these are particularly fond of the blossoms of the honey- 

 suckle, and this plant, especially if in the neighbourhood 

 of the sea-coast, will be found an excellent lure for them. 

 The hawk-moths are very difficult to procure, and though 

 we have a large number of occasional visitors among this 

 tribe, few cabinets are supplied with British specimens of 

 more than half the species ; the practice of giving high 

 prices for these beautiful moths, offers a temptation to the 

 cupidity of dealers which it is next to impossible to resist, 

 and in consequence hundreds of exotic specimens are an- 

 nually imported, their pins exchanged, their position al- 

 tered, and their claim as natives solemnly averred. Every 

 young collector of British insects should most carefully ab- 

 stain from the purchase of these expensive rarities ; or if 

 he wish to adorn his cabinet with them, he may frequently 

 find opportunities of obtaining French, Spanish, Italian, 

 or German specimens at a very low price, and these should 

 be carefully ticketed with the name of the locality whence 

 they were obtained, and kept apart from those which he 

 knows to have been captured 

 in Britain. Some of the spe- 

 cies of hawk-moths fly only in 

 the sunshine, and do not settle 

 on flowers whilst extracting their 

 sweets, but hover about them, 

 thrusting their long suckers into 

 the corollas ; this mode of feed- 

 ing, and their elegant appear- 

 ance, has obtained for them the 

 name of humming-birds. Two 

 of the species may often be seen 

 in the spring, hovering about the 

 flowers of the common bugle ; these have transparent 



