BRITISH BUTTERFLIES 



will be looked for season after season with lively 

 interest. One is the dance at dusk of the ghost moth. 

 Last year this was kept up in the tranquil evenings of 

 the second fortnight in June, and it continued well into 



July. 



The dance is now again at its height in the meadows. 

 It has taken place of late on evenings that closely recall 

 those of last June : the same calm, the same scented 

 breath of the evening just before hay harvest the 

 partridge plaint the crooning of night-jars the peepy 

 notes of the latest song thrush at a few minutes after 

 nine o'clock ; only a change in planets, Venus burning 

 in the tinted west instead of the taper of Mars in the 

 blue. 



The clock of the moths, like that of the birds, must 

 surely have minute, if not second, hands. After 

 watching and waiting for the ghost moths' appearance 

 oif two successive evenings, we may on the third even- 

 ing reckon almost to a minute if the weather is of the 

 same character when they will come whirring out of 

 the long, thick meadow grasses. At ten minutes past 

 nine, I found most of the ghost moths oscillating in 

 the meadow. Next night at nine o'clock not a ghost 

 moth was to be seen, though here and there its relative 

 and frequent companions in the meadows, the common 

 swift moth, was whizzing through the grasses. But 

 ten minutes later a male ghost moth came up ; there 



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