168 LIFE AND SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE 



bursts of a strong wind. They kept up by dancing 

 with their heads pointing always straight into the 

 wind just as the hawk hovers. Mr. W. H. Hudson 

 once remarked to me that the whole outlines of the 

 ghost moth's wings are clearly seen as it swings or 

 hovers, and I thought this might be because the wings 

 did not move so quickly as those of other hovering 

 moths whose wings appear to the eye only a misty 

 semicircle as they spin. But, watching again, I in- 

 cline to think that the action of the wings, after all, is 

 intensely quick, and that the reason why the whole 

 outline of them is seen clearly during the spin and 

 swing is that the white of the wings is so strong. So 

 lustrous white is the male ghost moth that several 

 times I have mistaken for him one of the ox-eye daisies 

 bobbing in the wind among the grass heads ; and like- 

 wise have mistaken a dancing ghost moth for a bobbing 

 ox-eye daisy. This is an amusing little deception. It 

 might strike the imagination as a whimsical bit of 

 mimicry prepared at dusk by midsummer fairies, just 

 to tease a gross, clumsy man ; an illustration of " What 

 fools these mortals be ! " 



Now when the female ghost moth spins and swings, 

 the outline of the wings and their disposition are not 

 so clearly seen, nor cleanly dipt out in the air, as 

 with the male ; the misty semicircle of wings, which 

 we notice in the common Y moth hovering, is to be 

 seen when the female ghost moth is spinning and 

 swinging. The difference between the male and the 



