AMERICAN EDITOR. 323 



brilliantly colored ; yellow, obliquely barred with green, 

 and spotted at intervals with blue and black. It has the 

 usual horn-like tail of the caterpillars of the hawk-moth 

 family. It feeds by preference on the leaves of the 

 potato, and those of the jessamine ; and is also found 

 on hemp and woody night-shade. The tea-tree is another 

 of its favorites, but, of course, in Europe, this last fancy 

 can not often be indulged. They generally lie concealed 

 by day, among the herbage, or in the earth. In August, 

 they assume the chrysalis state, being wrapped in their 

 tissue shrouds ; and in September or October, appears the 

 perfect and ominous moth, which, in some countries, has 

 been called the " wandering bird." When they first 

 emerge from their gauze-like shrouds, their wings are not 

 more than a finger-nail in breadth, but in the course of 

 an hour or two, they are stretched and dilated to their 

 full size. 



The Death's-head Moth is a great enemy to the bees, 

 being exceedingly fond of honey. Mr. Huber dwells at 

 length upon the singular sagacity of the little hive people 

 in defending their stores against this intruder. The bees, 

 at a first night attack of the Death's-head, appear quite 

 paralyzed with fear, and make no attempts to meet the 

 invader ; but the creature has hardly filled himself, and 

 taken flight again, before they begin to erect a waxen wall 

 within their gates, merely leaving one little aperture just 

 large enough to allow of the passage of a single bee at a 

 time, and of course the baffled moth, on appearing again 

 before their camp, is compelled to beat a retreat. The 

 account given by Mr. Huber of the defences raised by the 

 bees, on these occasions, is very interesting ; he observes 

 that these moths were so common in 1804, and committed 

 their devastations on so large a scale, that it attracted 

 general attention, and the owners of apiaries determined 



