150 INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



granted to do so without leading us to adopt the 

 inference of the theorists that they are thus coloured 

 to conceal them from their enemies. Were this, in- 

 deed, the true cause of these colours, the butterflies 

 ought to remain stationary on the flowers, without 

 sporting about in the sunshine, as if on purpose to 

 show the birds and the dragon flies that they are 

 living insects, and not inanimate flowers. In the 

 instance of many moths which fly by twilight, this is 

 no less obvious; for instead of being of dark dusky 

 colours, which would have effectually concealed them 

 from the bats and the fern-owls, they are frequently 

 white, or at least of such light colours as show well 

 in the dusk. There is but small need of enumera- 

 ting examples of this, and it will be sufficient to name 

 the white-ghost moth (Hepialus Humility, which may 

 often be seen, where hops or burdocks grow, hovering 

 on the wing for hours together; the satin moth (Leu- 

 coma SaliciSy STEPHENS), which floats about the 

 air like an animated flake of snow-white down, or 

 flits conspicuously from tree to tree among the higher 

 branches of a row of poplars; and the magpie moth 

 (Jlbraxas grossulariata), usually abundant in every 

 garden, though liberally sprinkled with black spots, 

 has enough of white to distinguish it in its heavy, 

 lumbering flight, even when the last rays of the twi- 

 light are disappearing. That these are not strained 

 examples of insects so coloured as to be conspicuous 

 to their enemies, will farther be obvious from a common 

 contrivance of schoolboys to catch bats. They chalk 

 the seed-heads of burdocks in such a manner as to 

 resemble the white moths alluded to; and throwing 

 these up where a bat is observed fbing, he fails not 

 to dart upon the supposed moth, and the bur adher- 

 ing to his wings, brings him down to pay the penalty 

 of his mistake.* 



* J. R. 



