HUMMING-BIRD MOTH. 211 



the lovely bird whose flight it imitates, revels in the 

 hottest sunshine. If, on a hot summer day, the 

 observer will take his stand by a jessamine or other 

 honey-bearing flower, and will quietly wait there, he 

 will assuredly see a Humming-bird Moth before long, 

 should the locality be one which is frequented by 

 this insect Suddenly, as he is watching a flower, 

 his eyes see a kind of shadowy form flitting in front 

 of the flowers, and his ears are greeted by the hum 

 which accompanies the flight of the Moth. Let him 

 but lift a hand, and the creature is gone how, or 

 where, it is impossible to say, so amazingly swift is 

 the darting flight. 



Stillj though it be gone, it will come back again if 

 no movement be made, and, in the same mysterious 

 manner, the Moth is again hovering in front of the 

 flowers. Presently, it selects one of them, and poising 

 itself within an inch or so of the blossom, its body 

 becomes visible, while its rapidly vibrating wings 

 look like two grey patches of mist on the sides of the 

 motionless body. Presently, a wonderfully long and 

 slender tongue is thrust from the head, plunged deeply 

 into the recesses of the flower, and, thus suspended in 

 mid-air, the insect takes its sweet repast It is a very 

 remarkable fact that the Humming-birds themselves 

 feed in precisely the same manner. 



The enormously long proboscis or tongue, with 

 which it extracts the liquid sweets from the flowers, 

 has obtained for the genus to which this and a few 

 other insects belong, the name of Macroglossa, or 

 Long-tongue. 



p 2 



