GENERAL CHARACTERS 11 



walk about in some country spot known to you as being one of 

 the haunts of that species of moth. Then, if any of the males of 

 the same species happen to be in the neighbourhood, they will 

 settle or hover about close to the female which, although still 

 concealed and quite out of their reach, has attracted them to the 

 spot. 



What a marvellously acute sense this must be, that thus enables 

 the insects to scent out, as it were, their mates at considerable 

 distances, even when doubly surrounded by a wooden box and the 

 material of a coat pocket ! You would naturally expect that 

 entomologists have turned this wonderful power to account. Many 

 a box has been filled with the beautiful Kentish Glories of the male 

 kind, who had been led into the snare by the attractions of a virgin 

 Glory that they were never to behold. Many an Emperor has also 

 been decoyed from his throne to the place of his execution, beguiled 

 by the imaginary charms of an Empress on. whom he was never to 

 cast one passing glance. And these and other similar captures 

 have been made in places where, without the employment of the 

 innocent enchantress, perhaps not a single male could have been 

 found, even after the most diligent search. 



Speaking of this surprising sense, I am again tempted to revert 

 to the antennse ; for it is a remarkable fact that the males of those 

 species of moths which exhibit the power of thus searching out their 

 mates, are just those that are also remarkable for their very broad 

 and deeply pectinated antennae a fact that has led to the supposi- 

 tion that the power in question is located in the antennae, and is 

 also proportional to the amount of surface displayed by .t^ese organs. 



Up to the present time we have been considering the butterfly 

 and moth in their perfect forms, but everybody knows that 

 the former is not always a butterfly, nor is the latter always a 

 moth ; but that they both pass through certain preparatory stages 

 before they attain their final winged state. 



\Ve shall now notice briefly what these earlier stages are, leaving 

 the detailed descriptions of each for the following chapters. 



The life of the perfect butterfly or moth is of very short 

 duration, often only a few days, nearly the whole of its existence 

 having been spent in preparing itself for the brief term to be enjoyed 



in fields of light, 



And where the flowers of Paradise unfold. 



It may be interesting to consider of what use the metamorphoses 



