XVII 

 GHOST MOTH EVENINGS 



"The desire of the moth for the star, 



Of the night for the morrow; 



The devotion to something afar 



From the sphere of our sorrow." SHELLEY. 



T FIND the difficulty at midsum- in the meadows. It has taken place 

 mer is not to avoid repeating of late on evenings that closely recall 

 one's observations of living things, those of last June : the same calm, 

 and of sky, sea, and landscapes ; the same scented breath of the even- 

 rather, it is so hard to fix the thought ing just before hay harvest the part- 

 and eye on the same things in succes- ridge plaint the crooning of night- 

 si ve Junes. No risk, indeed, of going jars the peepy notes of the latest 

 over old ground in detail at this season ! song thrush at a few minutes after 

 The subject-matter of Nature is so nine o'clock ; only a change in planets, 

 inexhaustible, the time so tantaliz- Venus burning in the tinted west in- 

 ingly little in which to examine and stead of the taper of Mars in the blue, 

 enjoy it, that the tendency is to turn The clock of the moths, like that 

 here and there, to press on always of the birds, must surely have minute, 

 to a fresh thing each June, instead of if not second, hands. After watching 

 concentrating on what we attended and waiting for the ghost moths' ap- 

 to this time last year. Out of the pearance on two successive evenings, 

 great treasuries of these wild-rose days, we may on the third evening reckon 

 treasuries of song, scent, colour, and almost to a minute if the weather 

 life manifested in most exquisite forms, is of the same character when they 

 we are always tempted to choose will come whirring out of the long, 

 some new thing. But there are cer- thick meadow grasses. At ten minutes 

 tain June episodes that, once noticed, past nine, I found most of the ghost 

 will be looked for season after season moths oscillating in the meadow. Next 

 with lively interest. One is the dance night at nine o'clock not a ghost moth 

 at dusk of the ghost moth. Last was to be seen, though here and there 

 year this was kept up in the tranquil its relative and frequent companion 

 evenings of the second fortnight in in the meadows, the common swift 

 June, and it continued well into July, moth, was whizzing through the grasses. 

 The dance is now again at its height But ten minutes later a male ghost 



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