324 A MEMENTO MORI. 



wings quiver, as if in indignation. But it is not alone these 

 quivering pinions which impart a motion like their own to 

 Deborah's whitened lip. It is not even the wail of that dis- 

 severed head which causes her heart to beat like a muffled 

 drum, in accompaniment of its plaintive pipe ; but she sees 

 she sees, plain as the effigy on Master Thomson's new tomb- 

 stone right on the creature's back, between its shoulders, 

 another head an eyeless skull magnified, by terror and 

 consciousness of cruelty, into size above the human. Poor 

 Deborah beholds no more she has seen and heard too much, 

 and falls, plump as her person, on the kitchen floor. There 

 her mistress, after having by reiterated peals broken the parlour 

 bell, was the first to find her. In due time, this veracious 

 tale of wonder was gathered from the domestic's lips ; and in 

 the mutilated object of her alarm, was discovered the deca- 

 pitated corpse of a Death's-head Moth. 



Next, in the power of raising superstitious terror, and as more 

 common than the last, an agent of creating it more extensively, 

 comes the "Death-watch," that pocket time-piece of the grisly 

 monarch, heard, not seen, whose measured tick tick gives 

 warning of its master's soundless footsteps. What hollow 

 echoes are awakened by this monotonous midnight music ! 



Let us now inspect them in a calmer and clearer manner. 



First, for the Death's-head the Sphinx or Acherontia 

 Atropos of the entomologist. And here, in the largest of 

 British moths, we have a beautiful insect of richly variegated 

 plumage, bird-like in magnitude the " wandering bird " of 

 Poland. 



In the upper wings, which, when expanded, cover an extent 

 of nearly five inches, the prevailing hues are very dark, but 

 elegantly disposed in waves and shades of brown and black, 

 broken by a few lighter clouds, and one small white spot near 

 the centre. The secondary pinions, of less sombre colouring, 

 are of a deep ochreous yellow, barred with black ; a livery in 

 which the massive body is also attired. The head and thorax 



