NOCTUKN1. 



11 



13. THE OLEANDER HAWK-MOTH. Fore 

 wings exquisitely varied and waved with 

 green, and having numerous slender and 

 oblique indistinct whitish lines traversing 

 them in all directions ; hind wings of the 

 same beautiful colour, but browner at the 

 base, and having a whitish line passing along 

 the middle ; body also green and shaded as 

 beautifully as the wings. This noble and 

 beautiful insect is not an inhabitant of Great 

 Britain ; but two or three specimens have been 

 blown over from the coast of Prance, in which 

 country it is not uncommon : this circum- 

 stance has induced our dealers to import 

 these Moths in large quantities for the sake 

 of imposing on rich and silly young collectors, 

 who give almost any money for a rarity of 

 this kind, little suspecting that it has just 

 been imported from the Continent at a hun- 

 dredth part of the price they are paying. The 

 caterpillar is as beautiful as the Moth ; it is 

 green, orange, or brown, delicately marked 

 with white dots ; the second, third, and fourth 

 segments are, however, always yellow, and the 

 third has on each side a large round blue spot, 

 with a black margin, and from this spot to 

 the tail is a straight whitish band on each side ; 

 it has a short horn above the tail, bent back- 

 wards. It feeds on the Oleander. The Moth 

 occurs in June and sometimes in October, 

 the caterpillar in July, August, and Septem- 

 ber. (The scientific name is Choerocampa 

 Nerii.) 



1.4. The Humming-Bird Hawk-Moth (Maeroglossa 

 itettatarum), 



14. THE HuMMiNG-BiED HAWK-MOTH. 

 Fore wings smoke-coloured, with two slender 

 cross-bars and a black dot between them ; 

 \iind wings orange coloured, blackish at the 



base and brownish at the margin : thorax and 

 body smoke-coloured, with black and white 

 spots at the sides of the latter, and close to 

 them black and white tufts of hair, which it 

 spreads out when flying ; the extreme end of 

 the body has also a fringe of stiff black 

 hairs. The flight of this insect is diurnal, 

 and very beautiful. What is this, at our 

 jasmine, with bird-like head, with brilliant 

 eye, with out-spread and parti-coloured tail, 

 humming loudly, and, though driven away, 

 returning again and again, day after day, 

 from the rising to the setting of the sun? 

 It is the Humming-bird Hawk-Moth: from 

 January to December we have some flower 

 welcome to her, and she is welcome, most 

 welcome to us and ours. The caterpillar is 

 greenish or pinkish-brown, the sides in both 

 cases inclining to blue, and sprinkled with 

 white ; and along each side is a straight 

 pinkish or dirty white line, which terminates 

 at the horn; below this is a second rather 

 narrower and less conspicuous line, of a 

 duller colour ; the horn is thin, sharp- 

 pointed, straight and upright ; it feeds on 

 the Ladies' Bedstraw. The chrysalis is brown, 

 and found just below the surface of the ground. 

 (The scientific name is Maeroglossa stella- 

 tarum.) 



16. The Broad-Bordered Bee Hawk-Moth (Macro- 

 glossa fuciformis) . 



15. THE BEOAD-BOEDEEED BEB HAWK- 

 MOTH. Fore wings transparent, with a brown 

 oblique spot in the centre, a black base tinged 

 with green, and a broad red-brown margin; 

 hind wings transparent, with a red-brown 

 margin ; thorax and base of the body olive- 

 brown ; middle of the body red-brown, in the 

 form of a belt; the remainder, to the tail, 



