106 Poachers and Poaching. 



toilets are presented when twilight falls and 

 affords its dewy veil. Under the closely-folded 

 wings of dusky grey are bright bodices of red, 

 scarlet, crimson, and orange. What an ad- 

 mirable chapter " The Loves of the Night- 

 Flyers " would afford by one who had fondly 

 watched the fairy things through the dewy hours 

 of a short summer night. 



The twilight-flyers afford a distinct class to 

 the night-flyers, and have several well-marked 

 characteristics. These are termed hawk-moths, 

 and have long, sharp, scythe-like wings. The 

 death's-head moth, the largest and most interest- 

 ing British species, belongs to this group. It 

 seldom comes abroad before darkness has fallen, 

 and is always conspicuous in its nocturnal flight. 

 Linnaeus, following his habitual system of no- 

 menclature, placed this insect in the " sphinx" 

 family on account of the form of its magnificent 

 caterpillar, and gave it the specific name of 

 Atropos, in allusion to the popular superstition. 

 Atropos being, according to Hesiod, the one of 

 the fates whose office it was to cut the thread of 

 human life, spun by her sisters, Clotho and 

 Lachesis. Modern entomologists have preserved 

 the idea of Linnaeus, giving to the new genus the 

 name of acherontia pertaining to Acheron, one 

 of the streams which, in the Greek mythology,, 

 have to be passed before entering the infernal 



