154 Country Rambles. 



captured on White Moss were the showy beetle called 

 Carabus nitens, the glittering green stripes of its wing- 

 cases edged with a band of brilliant copper-colour; the 

 fox-moth, Lasiocampa rubi, so called from its peculiar 

 foxy colour; and the emperor-moth, Saturnia pavonia, for 

 which the moss had been from time immemorial a noted 

 locality. Great has been the sport of many an ento- 

 mologist, as, sitting on White Moss on a fine day in early 

 summer, with a captured virgin female of this beautiful 

 creature, the antenna of which are like ostrich plumes, 

 the males have flocked to him, or rather to her, by the 

 hundred, for the virgin female of the emperor-moth, 

 though she can fly, prefers to sit still until she has been 

 visited by an individual of the other sex. Up to this 

 period she exudes a delicate odour which attracts the 

 latter from long distances, those which have far to come, 

 and arrive late, or not till after the advent of the first, 

 turning back, unless captured by the entomologist's net, 

 as soon as they perceive by their wonderful instinct that 

 she is virgin no longer. The wings of the males, as 

 with most other kinds of butterfly, are rarely found perfect, 

 except when first fledged. Flying about in ardent search 

 of the female, they tear and chip them against the heath 

 and other plants with which they come in contact through 

 their impatience. The plant that chiefly attracted atten- 

 tion on that memorable day was the cotton-sedge, the 

 most beautiful production of the moorlands, and con- 

 spicuous from afar as its silvery-white tassels bend and 

 recover before the breeze. Carrying off a great handful, 



