CH. III.] INSECTS WHICH FORM COCOONS. 59 



marks, in miniature pretty much resembling those 

 of a common sparrow. 



" The aurelians call such a wedding as the above 

 a sembling (assembling) match, and never succeed 

 with any but a virgin female. By what unknown, 

 and perhaps unnamed power, the males distinguish 

 between a married female and one that has not been 

 impregnated I know not, and should be glad to learn, 

 but that they can and do make an unerring dis- 

 crimination between the two is well known to most 

 aurelians. They avoid the latter, and never ap- 

 proach her, while for the former they display all the 

 solicitude and anxiety I have above so fully ex- 

 plained. There was once an instance of a male 

 creeping into the pocket of an aurelian, which con- 

 tained a virgin female in his pocket-box." 



We have, however, heard of still more extraor- 

 dinary exploits than this, performed by these inam- 

 oratoes. Jurine records two circumstances some- 

 what similar : one of his friends captured a female 

 of the emperor moth, and stuck it with a pin upon 

 his hat, and in the course of his walk no less than 

 thirteen males were caught hovering about his 

 head. The other circumstance was still more re- 

 markable, and seems to prove that it is by scent 

 that the males are attracted a female of the fox 

 moth (Eriogaster rubi) was killed immediately after 

 her exclusion from the chrysalis, when she ejected 

 some drops of a fluid similar to that which we have 

 noticed above in the butterfly as the cause of the 

 bloody rain. On the following day a male flew into 

 the chamber, on the second day another male ap- 

 peared, and in the evening a third, and from their 

 motions it was evident that they were attracted to 

 the spot by the scent of the fluid before mentioned. 

 Jurine conjectures that the fine feathered antennae 

 of the male are the parts which serve to direct them 

 in these flights, and the differences between these 

 organs in the two sexes are easily perceived. 



