34 INSECTS 



The Lepidoptera have been already incidentally 

 referred to as pollenizers and they rank, as an order, 

 next to the Hymenoptera in importance. Butterflies 

 and moths, when they feed at all, feed only on liquids 

 and most of them on prepared plant juices or nectar. 

 The butterfly hovering over a flower and sipping honey, 

 is a familiar figure, and the visits of hawk-moths to the 

 flowers that open at dusk are fairly well known; but 

 that busy life that stirs among the flowers after night 

 falls, is unknown except to the naturalist who prowls 

 about in wood and field, among the hedges and along 

 the road, often with a bulls-eye lantern like a thief; 

 seeking indeed to surprise some of nature's secrets by 

 artificial light, his organs of sight being far inferior to 

 those of the creatures whom he seeks to study. 



That many flowers are most fragrant at night, and 

 that many fragrant, night-blooming flowers are white 

 or without striking colors, is a commonplace to one 

 who knows the country at all; but that this penetrating, 

 fragrance is to attract insect visitors at a time when sight 

 does not suffice for an invitation is not so well known. 

 And yet it is at night that the most abundant, albeit 

 almost noiseless, life can be observed on such flowers, 

 and here we will find owlet and other moths busily 

 engaged in probing every floret and incidentally accom- 

 plishing nature's aim of reproduction. I say "inci- 

 dentally" with intent in this case, because neither 

 moth nor butterfly has any use for the pollen that it 

 dislocates and relocates as it moves. It is after food, 

 purely and simply, and that food is nectar: if in reaching 

 that nectar the tongue, pollen laden, is brought into 

 contact with the stigma, that is merely because the 

 insect could not help itself, any more than it could pre- 

 vent the adhesion of a few grains of pollen from 

 another flower. 



