THE DEATH'S-HEAD MOTH. 369 



that is, if it made people do better in this world, 

 it would matter but little who were the messenger; 

 whether moth, or monitor of a more rational kind : 

 but the mischief is, that those superstitious admoni- 

 tions, whether they proceed from moth or man, do 

 harm instead of good, cause the alarm, but not the 

 amendment, and therefore they ought, upon all oc- 

 casions, to be exposed. From this insect they are 

 not prevalent in this country ; for, to the knowledge 

 of naturalists at least, the death's-head moth is com- 

 paratively recent, as well as rare. 



On the continent, it has been longer and better 

 known ; and there are instances in which its appear- 

 ance has excited great alarm. Reaumur mentions 

 an instance where, at the entrance of one, by the 

 window of a convent on a fine summer's evening, 

 the whole of the sisterhood were thrown into an alarm 

 of instant mortality; but whether the warning was 

 attended with the requisite preparation for the event- 

 whether they called upon the fathers to double their 

 diligence in the hour of peril has not been recorded ; 

 and, therefore, cannot now be known. Consequently, 

 we are left to consider the sphinx atropos simply 

 as an insect, in which character it is at least, as an 

 object of curiosity, entitled to rank at the head of 

 British moths. 



The unfrequency of the appearance of this moth 

 is a proof of its delicacy, rather than of any deadly 

 power. It seems, indeed, to be much more difficult 

 to rear than any of the other kinds that we have ; as 

 the winged insect is often unknown, in places where 

 the larvae are met with. That mature insects must 



