THE GHOST MOTH. 193 



ed with buff; the lady reposer has her upper wings ^of 

 a tawny yellow, spotted and banded with deep brown. 

 They are very inert creatures, easily captured, and their 

 existence appears to be of very short duration, as we 

 soon cease to observe them, either in action or at rest. 

 The male probably becomes the prey of every bird that 

 feeds by night; his color and his actions rendering him 

 particularly obnoxious to dangers of this nature, and 

 the frequency with which we find his wings scattered 

 about, points out the cause of death-to most of them. 

 The bat pursues with great avidity all those creatures 

 that fly in the evening ; and by its actions it seems to 

 meet with constant employment, and has greater prob- 

 ability of success, than some insectivorous birds that 

 feed by day, as all the myriads which abound at this 

 time are the sole prey of itself and a few nocturnal 

 ramblers. From this singular flight in the twilight hour, 

 haunting as it were one particular spot, the fancy of 

 some collector, considering it as a spectrelike action, 

 named it the " ghost moth." 



The fern owl,* but chiefly, I conjecture, the larger 

 bats, are the creatures that have caused me to expe- 

 rience at times both envy and regret, when I have ob- 

 served scattered in some woodland path, amidst the 

 fragments of their nightly banquet, the relics of such 

 beautiful insects as the emperor of the woods, the 

 verdigris moth, and twenty other rare insects, to be ob- 

 tained only after the patience of years, or fortune of the 

 hour ; and yet our merciless birds devour these choice 

 dainties without compunction or regard. This ghost 

 moth discharges her eggs in a very singular manner, 

 and frequently immediately upon capture, not delibe- 

 rately protruding them, but dismissing them from the 

 oviduct in rapid succession, until it is exhausted, with 

 a slight elastic force, that conveys them clear from the 

 abdomen. They are perfectly dry and unadhesive. 



It requires more than usual delicate management to 

 preserve an uninjured specimen of the male of this 

 species, as the slightest touch robs the wings of the fine 

 Caly plumage which is affixed to their film or substance 



* The Night Hawk. 



