The Great Peacock 



warns the Moth from afar and brings him 

 hurrying to the spot. The distance and the 

 screens interposed make this quite impossible. 



Besides, apart from deceptive refractions, 

 of which there is no question in this case, the 

 indications provided by light are so precise 

 that we go straight to the thing seen. Now 

 the Moth sometimes blunders, not as to the 

 general direction which he is to take, but as to 

 the exact spot where the Interesting events 

 are happening. I have said that the child- 

 ren's nursery, which is at the side of the 

 house opposite my study, the real goal of my 

 visitors at the present moment, was occupied 

 by the Moths before I went there with a light 

 in my hand. These certainly were ill- 

 informed. There was the same throng of 

 hesitating visitors in the kitchen; but here the 

 light of a lamp, that irresistible lure to noctur- 

 nal Insects, may have beguiled the eager ones. 



Let us consider only the places that were 

 In the dark. In these there are several stray 

 Moths. I find them more or less everywhere 

 around the actual spot aimed at. For in- 

 stance, when the captive Is In my study, the 

 visitors do not all enter by the open window, 

 the safe and direct road, only two or three 



251 



