222 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 



night and the moths' strange motions and white- 

 ness in the dark that gave it a magic on that 

 occasion. Seen by daylight or lamplight it is Lord 

 de Tabley's " owl- white moth with mealy wings," 

 or one of them, and nothing more. 



Moths are mostly haunters of the twilight and 

 the dark, but we have one of the larger and highly 

 distinguished species, the humming - bird hawk- 

 moth, which flies abroad by day, even during the 

 hottest seasons, and visits our gardens in the full 

 blaze of noon. It has no glory of colour like the 

 crimson underwing and death's-head moth, nor 

 ghostly white, yet it outshines all the others in 

 beauty and in the sense of wonder and delight its 

 appearance produces. Here I will quote part of a 

 letter written to me some years ago by a lady who 

 wanted to know if I could identify an insect she 

 was particularly interested in, from her description. 

 She had seen it when a child in the garden at her 

 early home in Wiltshire, and never since, nor had 

 she ever discovered what it was. 



" When I was a child," the letter says, " I had 

 a great fancy for a rare, strange, fascinating insect 

 called by the children of my day the Merrylee- 

 dance-a-pole. Only on the hottest and longest of 

 summer days did the radiant being delight our 

 eyes; to have seen it conferred high honour and 

 distinction on the fortunate beholder. We re- 

 garded it with mingled awe and joy, and followed 

 its erratic and rapid flight with ecstasy. It was 

 soft and warm and brown, fluffy and golden, too, 



