2oo Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 



stretch their wings for a flight which will end only 

 with the dawn. 



In the insect world innumerable creatures fly out 

 of countless holes and hiding-places as dusk falls, 

 seeking those flowers of darkness which hold con- 

 tinuous receptions for them through the dewy 

 summer nights. 



There is a popular but an erroneous impression 

 that only two or three sorts of blossoms unfold at 

 evening. The night-blooming cereus is so big and 

 splendid that it occupies an undue place in the 

 public mind as the flower of darkness, whose noc- 

 turnal habits are shared only by the moon-flower. 

 But if we bethink us that moths draw most of 

 their sustenance from flower-calices, we will realize 

 that there must be a whole category of night- 

 blooming flowers. For though many blossoms do 

 not close at dusk, but keep open house day and 

 night during their whole time of blooming, the 

 buds of most species expand in the sunshine, and 

 the chances are that their sweets will be ex- 

 tracted soon afterward by some diurnal rover. 



How, then, does Nature feed the crepiscular 

 moths, which flit abroad at sundown, and the noc- 

 turnal moths, which fly in darkness ? We realize 

 their numbers, to our cost, if we burn a lamp near 



