London Insects. 141 



leaves are to be seen carrying untidy webs containing 

 a small hairy chrysalis. The perfect Moth the 

 male, that is flies in broad daylight, and, as if 

 specially designed for the consolation of country- 

 born Londoners sentenced for any reason to spend 

 an August in London, is to be seen then in numbers 

 plunging about in front of the shop windows in the 

 hottest sunshine, looking in spite of its beautiful 

 feathery antennae less like an insect than a withered 

 yellow beach leaf caught by an eddy of wind. 



But the obliging way it shows itself is by no means 

 the only thing which makes the Vapourer specially 

 interesting. It is closely allied to some naturalists 

 class it with a family which is of more apparent 

 value to man than all other families of Moths and 

 Butterflies together. It is a silk-spinner, and, in 

 common with many of the family most notably the 

 Silkworm Moth the female is practically wingless. 

 It is curious, but not of any great importance to any 

 of us, to know that the female of the Vapourer Moth 

 seldom goes far from the web in which it lay as a 

 chrysalis, and often never even strays outside it. 

 But the same characteristic in the silkworm is of very 

 great importance. For if the female Silkworm Moth 

 had perfect wings, and were free as other ladies of 

 the kind are, to come and go and mate and lay her 

 eggs wherever fancy led her, instead of living and 

 dying content with her own mulberry tree, silk 

 cultivation on any large scale would be impossible. 

 A silk dress would be as rare a treasure as Lady 

 Brassey's feather cloak, and the thousands now 

 employed in the various silk industries would have 

 to look elsewhere for a livelihood, 



They are agreeable Moths, too, because they do not 

 waste too long in the chrysalis state often not more 



