398 LEPIDOPTERA 



CHAP. 



Fiji Islands ; but we must repeat that the study of these 

 interesting Insects is in a very primitive state, and our present 

 knowledge of their distribution may be somewhat misleading. 



The habits of the European Hepialus in courtship have been 

 observed to a considerable extent and are of great interest, an 

 astonishing variety and a profound distinction in the methods 

 by which the sexes are brought together having been revealed. 



H. Jmmuli, our Ghost -moth, is the most peculiar. Its 

 habits were detected by Dr. Chapman. 1 The male is an 

 Insect of exceptional colour, being white above, in consequence of 

 a dense formation of imperfect scales ; the female is of the 

 brownish tints usual in Swift -moths. In the month of June 

 the male selects a spot where he is conspicuous, and hovers 

 persistently there for a period of about twenty minutes in the 

 twilight ; his colour has a silvery-white, glistening appearance, 

 so that the Insect is really conspicuous notwithstanding the 

 advanced hour. Females may be detected hovering in a some- 

 what similar manner, but are not conspicuous like the male, 

 their colour being obscure ; while so hovering they are oviposit- 

 ing, dropping the eggs amongst the grass. Females that have 

 not been fertilised move very differently and dash about in 

 an erratic manner till they see a male ; they apparently have 

 no better means of informing the hovering male of their presence 

 than by buzzing near, or colliding with him. Immediately this 

 is done, the male abandons his hovering, and coupling occurs. 

 There can be little doubt that the colour of the male attracts 

 the female ; but there is a variety, hethlandica, of the former 

 sex coloured much like the female, and in some localities 

 varieties of this sort are very prevalent, though in others the 

 species is quite constant. This variation in the colour of the 

 males is very great in Shetland, 2 some being quite like the 

 females. In H. hectas the two sexes are inconspicuously and 

 similarly coloured. The male hovers in the afternoon or evening 

 in a protected spot, and while doing so diffuses an agreeable 

 odour said by Barrett to be like pine-apple and this brings 

 the female to him, much in the same manner as the colour 

 of H. liumuli brings its female. The hind legs of the male 



1 Ent. May. xiii. 1876, p. 63 ; and xxiii. 1886, p. 164. 



2 Weir, Entomologist, xiii. 1880, p. 219, plate ; King, Ent. Record, vii. 1895, 

 p. 111. 



