INSECT LIFE 167 



dance. Watching the white owl hawk the heavy grass 

 field in three evenings, I doubt not he came for the 

 ghost moths. The owl, then, is insect-eater at seasons. 

 I was never near enough to see him seize a moth, but, 

 his movements left me in no doubt the second evening. 

 He would sweep just above the flowering grass heads, 

 stopping dead here and there, hovering for a second 

 or two, dipping slightly, then, mount ing again, sweep 

 onward. His flight, every twist, every stroke of it gave 

 me the idea of downy softness and downy silence ; and 

 of smoothness and ease too, though not of a great 

 power of speed. Twice or thrice I saw him swoop 

 upwards a few feet above the grass heads, and then he 

 must have been taking a moth that had mounted high 

 and was zigzagging away to another sphere of action, 

 as the ghost moths will. 



I went out to look for the white owl among the 

 white ghost moths on the fourth evening, but he did 

 not appear on the wing whilst I watched. A fine rain 

 fell, little bursts and whiffs of wind from the south- 

 west urging it almost horizontally. Even during the 

 whiffs the ghost moths were up, dancing above the 

 grass heads. I thought at first they danced with a 

 little less spirit than on dry evenings, but this may 

 have been fancy. Wind and wet must be furious, I 

 suspect, to keep down the ghost moths the whole of 

 one evening. The first evening I saw them they were 

 moving with their wonted energy, though the heavy 

 crop of grass rustled and bent low before the constant 



